We continue and conclude the interview with Jon, the creator of copy.church. 

Before we get into the rest of the interview I want to make a few comments. As I have more conversations with people around the world about the issue of freely giving gospel ministry and the stance that I hold that ministry should be supported, not sold, I’ve run into a few common threads. The first is that people–even world-class intelligent scholars, have no biblical arguments for disagreeing with me. Everyone has pragmatic or emotional arguments, but so far no one has any biblical arguments. And this, I suspect, is perhaps because there are none. We’re letting our thinking about selling ministry be driven by the world rather than Scripture.

Second, when people hear me talk about these things, many seem unable to listen to what I’m saying. They assume that what I’m saying is that all people who engage in ministry should never receive money and should be dying of poverty. So let me say again: I believe gospel ministry should be supported, not sold. It’s a very simple distinction that for some reason people often refuse to hear, and then assume something totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Third, I’d like to suggest that it’s not a very serious argument to simply dismiss the example of Jesus and Paul as irrelevant and non-prescriptive to the believers today. This is another thing I’ve run into. If you want to say that Jesus’ command to freely give in Matthew 10 has zero implications for present day ministry, you have to give some serious reasons for why that’s a serious hermeneutic. And if you are still convinced that Jesus and Paul’s examples have no bearing on your life and the church today, I’d encourage you to at least figure out where in Scripture we find guardrails for money and ministry. If there are no guardrails in the Bible regarding these things, then we have no answer to the prosperity preachers. It’s important to be able to show why it’s unbiblical to sell prayers for people or charge money for admission to a church worship service. Obviously there are no direct commands in Scripture regarding these things, so you would have to base these convictions off biblical principles. I would strongly suggest that it would be pretty sad and disgraceful if we as the Church end up with no way to scripturally condemn the selling of prayers or the selling of baptism, for example. If we can’t condemn such basic abuses, then we are not actually paying attention to the very fabric and spirit of God’s Word. Yet this is precisely where everyone I have talked to so far who disagrees with a biblical prohibition of selling ministry ends up. That is, they are unable to tell me from Scripture why it’s not ok to charge someone money for a baptism.

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We’ve talked about copyright on this podcast already, but we still haven’t taken a meticulous look at the way mainstream Bible translations are licensed, what the specific limitations are, and how different translations compare to each other in this area. This episode will be a real eye-opener for many of you, so make sure you’re sitting down. We’re going to be talking to the creator of a website called copy.church, which seeks to point people to the simple truth that it’s wrong to limit access to the Word of God. He’s been thinking about and studying these things for years, and I think what he has to say is extremely important. 

Jon is the founder of Gracious Tech, a mission-focused app development ministry. He first got interested in missions while travelling in South-East Asia and realizing the dire need for the gospel there. He promptly committed his life to mission work and completed an MDiv in preparation. While he initially thought he'd be putting his IT skills to the side, he soon realized how advantageous it would be to have apps for sharing the Gospel and aiding mission work.

During his first term of mission overseas, he worked on an app for sharing Bible stories using plain Scripture. It was almost finished when he realized the licenses of almost all Bible translations don't permit sharing plain scripture, and instead must be accompanied by other commentary. Not knowing much about copyright or how to go about seeking permission, the project was put on hold for many years.

Jon later founded Gracious Tech and now commits most of his time to developing apps for mission. He currently lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and two young daughters.

Please consider helping spread Jon's website copy.church.

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Many people ask me what they might need to become a BT consultant. In this podcast we'll walk through all the details of what you'll be need to measure up to if you want to serve the BT movement in this way. Here's a public listing of these competencies: https://bibletranslationcompetencies.org/consultant-competencies/

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What does a sociolinguistics consultant do, and how can Bible translators continue to think carefully about language vitality? What kinds of questions should you ask to quickly assess the status of a language? For answers to all this and more, we have Scott Smith as our guest today. Get ready for a deep dive into the world of sociolinguistics.

Scott Smith and I met back in 2011 when he convinced me to join him and his team over in Equatorial Guinea in Central Africa. He and his wife Margaret have been working there on and off for decades, and they are some of the most generous people I know. Fun fact: they built their home out of shipping containers right on the beach in Equatorial Guinea, and I’ve spent a lot of time out there visiting with them over the years, drinking coconuts and enjoying the warm ocean water. Sometimes Scott and I would have meetings while floating on the waves. Scott is also known for his jokes, playing with words in multiple languages, and for enjoying being a polyglot in general. 

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My grandparents ended up having four children, all of whom eventually worked in Bible translation. Their family loved to laugh and sing and tell jokes. This is the second part of their lives in BT, in which we reach the completion of the NT in Zapotec of Sierra Juarez (language code zaa). "God has helped us to translate portions of the Old Testament and the complete New Testament. We have done a literacy program, with primers, a dictionary, grammar and reading books. We have trained and discipled many Zapotecs, done medical work, taught music, helped choirs and programs, participated in community projects, sent Zapotecs to schools of higher education, done group service and public relations, and hospitality, counseling, discipleship and a few other things. We even had a part in beginning a radio program in Zapotec. Now there are many trained Pastors and leaders, churches and Christian workers." 

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My grandma and grandpa Neil and Jane Nellis are no longer with us, but they did leave behind a 60,000 word book that records their story in their own words—their family histories, their conversions, their love story, and the account of their work in Mexico and Bible translation. This is the first part of an abridged version of their story. They lived through the Great Depression, played chess with Uncle Cam, and eventually ended up translating the NT into the language of the most famous president of Mexico.

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Before we continue with the series on my family in Bible translation, I wanted to bring a few things to your attention, recommend some things, and share some BT general news.

First, on my website workingfortheword.com I’ve added a resource page for people interested in finding out more about translation or who want to grow as a consultant in training, etc. It’s still a work in progress, and I’m sure some of you will have recommendations of things that would be helpful to add to it, including things I’ve mentioned in the past on this podcast and forgot to include. If you do, feel free to email me at [email protected]. And if you’ve been following this podcast for a while, you’ll know that I’m especially interested in free, open access resources. What I’m doing with this page is providing a curated list of things I personally have read and recommend for your professional development or if you just have a casual interest in BT.  Obviously there are many more works on BT out there, and many more tools, but I personally don’t find all of them useful or helpful. So go ahead and check it out and see if there’s anything on there that looks interesting. I hope it can serve the BT movement.

Links mentioned:

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the meaning of everything

Internalization: A Key Ingredient in Achieving Naturalness in an Oral Translation

My series in Spanish on the textual criticism of the Old Testament

freehebrew.online

freegreek.online

Interview on the Bible in India

Bible Translation Training and Development Community of Practice

Quality in Translation Exploratory Symposium

Multilingual Assessment Tool

November News on MAP

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Last episode we began listening to the story of my dad’s life and involvement in Bible translation. In this second and final part we’ll hear about how he broke his neck while in the village, spiritual warfare he and my mom faced, the translation work, and more. Enjoy! Another huge thank you to my dad. I hope this interview proves to be interesting, encouraging, and edifying.

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In this series on people in my family who have contributed to Bible translation, the next person is my dad, Daniel Case. He’s been through a lot in his 75 years of life, from growing up in Cuba to serving in the Vietnam War to being a medical missionary and working for decades in Bible translation for the Chatino people of El Carrizal in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. I really admire his wisdom, tenacity, humility, and servant heart, and I wanted to share his story with you. 

My parents played a big part in inspiring Mark and Gloria Zook to go into Bible translation. This is the Ee-taow story about their ministry in PNG.

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There are actually a lot of people in my family who are currently involved in Bible translation or were at some point, so I thought it would be fun and interesting to put together a series that tells their stories. Each one is unique, and my hope is that this will give you a window into some of the history of Bible translation and the different experiences and challenges that people have faced, especially here in Mexico. We’re going to start with my grandpa Edward Case, my dad’s dad, who is 101 years old and now lives in California. I got my uncle Jim who lives nearby to ask him some questions about his brief involvement in BT and subsequent missionary work in Cuba during the decade or so before Fidel Castro took over, which were some of Cuba’s golden years. Although his time working towards BT in Mexico was cut short by WWII, it’s interesting to hear the trajectory of his life and the way God used him and his family.

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