Engaging Oral Communities with God’s Word through Oral Bible Translations

The possibilities of Scripture Engagement with Oral Bible Translations are multifold. OBT gives communities access to God’s Word very early in the process. The audio files can be shared easily through phones and by means of social media. This ease in sharing the audio files expedites the spread of God’s Word in communities. In this era of podcasts, people are open to engaging with God’s Word in audio. People from other faiths are not threatened by the oral Scriptures paving the way to evangelism and discipleship. The non-literate people get access to the Word of God in a format accessible to them facilitating a deeper understanding and application of Scripture in oral cultures. Oral Bible Translation is proving to be a great tool for Scripture engagement among people from different contexts.

In this paper, we will look at the varied ways in which three OBT teams have successfully used oral Scripture to engage communities with God’s Word. All three communities are different from one another. The creative ways in which these teams engaged their diverse communities with God’s Word will help design Scripture Engagement programs using oral Scripture in communities and churches.
In addition to Scripture Engagement, the spread of these audio files has resulted in requests from the communities for language development, even leading to language revitalization in one case. This paper will also talk about this surprising offshoot of Scripture Engagement activities in these communities.