Kyle is the founder of the Bible Translation Fellowship. BTF is engaged in advocacy, recruiting and networking in order to equip churches to labor in Bible translation. Kyle holds graduate degrees in counseling, translation and biblical languages. He is burdened to mobilize churches to engage in Bible translation, so that the Word may run forth and be glorified (2Thess 3.1).
The Embodiment of God in the Life of the Church: Training Pastor-Translators for Ecclesial Missions
Abstract
How do we train more translators and consultants? Does our “manufacturing” metaphor of the translation process, and especially the “quality assurance” role of the consultant need to change, as Larry Jones asked us 2 years ago? How do we maintain quality while delivering a greater quantity of Scripture products to every language? How does the BT community partner with others in the Great Commission? Is the church called to “embody” the love of Christ, and how does BT contribute? Following Andreas Köstenberger (1998), David Hesselgrave argued that the missiological task of the church is “representational,” not “incarnational” (2005). Is he right? Does it matter? I will present a model of “ecclesial missions” that integrates challenges from sub-themes two (BT and Theology) and four (Training and Mentoring). A robust, ecclesially-calibrated missiology integrates the training and mentoring of Bible translators with the training and mentoring of church leaders (hence “pastor-translators”). While arguing for this “ecclesial missiology” from Ephesians, I will illustrate this model with historic examples of pastor-translators so that we can learn from church history to see how previous generations of Christians have labored in the Great Commission and Bible translation.