First Telling: The Story You Don’t Want to Hear
Once upon a time, the people God made rebelled against Him and decided to make a name for themselves. They built a grand city and a tower whose top reached to the heavens. The great high God looked down and cursed these people by confusing their speech.
Now YHWH, this great high God, is so high that no tower can reach Him and no human can know Him. He is beyond, unreachable, other. And so He remains.
On the day God sent His Spirit, God’s message was given in the Greek language spoken by people present from many nations, ethnic groups, and mother tongues. Highly impressed, the listeners commented to one another, “That was interesting! I didn’t quite understand it all, but it sure seemed like Mr. Peter was really inspired.”
The message kept going through the world to all nations. Messengers worked hard to teach the people to read Hebrew and Greek so they could receive God’s message in the languages He gave it.
It was hard for people to know the God who didn’t speak their language. But a few souls received Him, and in the End, there was a small group around the throne praising the great high God. Miraculously, they were all able to speak in the original pre-tower language so He could understand and receive their worship.
ReTelling: The Story You Need to Hear
In the beginning, God blessed the people He had made, commanding them to multiply and spread through the earth, replenish it, and subdue it. They rebelled and tried to stay together instead. So God fast-forwarded the process by diversifying their speech.
Then YHWH, this great high God, so high and incomprehensible, became man! He revealed Himself in the only way that would be fully comprehensible to men, so that He could bring men back to God. And His name is Jesus.
On the day God sent His Spirit, all those gathered heard in their own languages the wonderful works of God. Deeply convicted, thousands were baptized into Jesus’ congregation.
The message kept going through the world to all nations. Messengers worked hard to demonstrate the message in their relationships and translate the Scriptures into the languages of the people. The message always came through with slightly different nuances, even imperfections. But it proved to be a transforming message, as the people became intimately familiar with the God who understood and loved them.
In the End, behold, a multitude no man can number, gathered around the throne, praising God in the languages they know best. He smiles on them, perfectly understanding and receiving the worship of their hearts.
Why the Two Tellings?
For us at All-Nations, the idea of Scripture translation flows from the concept of the Incarnation.
In the first telling of The Story above, we imagine a world where God does what mortals might expect Him to do: He maintains His dignity, and the dignity of His message, by remaining separate and apart from humankind, its limitations, and its myriad languages. (There are religions whose god is like that.) Thankfully, that “first telling” is a false narrative. Don’t believe it!
The true God performed the unexpected, even the scandalous: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He determines to be known, as the multilingual experience at Pentecost also demonstrates.
Bible translation carries one aspect of this principle forward through the ages, facilitating access to the written Word with an eye toward the day described in Revelation 7:9: “a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”
May The Story open fresh clarity and infuse wonder and worship into your celebration of the Christ-child.