A lecture on the Background to Bible Translation and Christian mission.

1. God: Communication and Language

2. What is the most fundamental thing we can say about God?

3. God is Trinity

4. "Here the monks gathered every Sunday to hear a sermon from the Abbot, except on Trinity Sunday owning to the difficulty of the subject."

5. The Biblical Conundrum There is One God The Father, the Son and the Spirit are God The Father is not the Son or the Spirit and the Son is not the Spirit.

6. The Triune God is Relational

7. We are made in God’s image

8. The story

9. God reaching out to draw people into relationship with himself. Mission!

11. The Bible: A Missional Book It serves God’s missional purpose by revealing himself to people to draw them to him. It is a living history of his mission to humanity. The Bible and mission are two sides of the same coin.

12. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:20,21

13. We are called to share in the Trinitarian relationship!

14. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. John 20:21

15. “Those who have come to know the life of God through the missionary activity of the Son are themselves given the privilege for becoming 'co-missionaries' with God.”

16. Three in One and One in Three. Father, Son and Spirit Variety

17. The Christian Church delights in Variety!

18. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

20. Mission Revelation Variety

21. Mix them together and what do we get? BIBLE TRANSLATION!

22. We do Bible translation because God is the God He is.

24. Christianity seems unique in being the only world religion that is transmitted without the language or originating culture of its founder. Prof. LaminSanneh

25. Christianity does not belong to any particular race or nation.

26. Nor does mission work!

27. It’s all about relationships.