08. Until It Is Heard in the Mother Tongue
Can You Be a Disciple and Not Multiply Disciples? Special Update · Part 08
I’m pausing Can You Be a Disciple and Not Multiply Disciples? for one article. We will return next time, right where we left off.
But something happened this week that I could not wait to share.
This week, the entire International African Mobilization training website became available in fifteen languages. All Seven Sails. Every story. Every disciple-making tool.
But now I need your help.
I need native speakers. And people who understand Scripture. To review the translations. Do they sound natural? Are they clear and helpful? Do they communicate the biblical meaning faithfully? Is anything confusing, misleading, or doctrinally inaccurate?
The goal is not simply to say that our website is available in fifteen languages. The goal is to provide trustworthy, biblical, and practical tools that ordinary disciples can confidently use and pass on to others.
Why the Mother Tongue Matters
On the day of Pentecost, people from many nations gathered in Jerusalem. Then something remarkable happened:
“We hear them speaking in our languages the mighty works of God!”. Acts 2:11 WEB
God could have used one language for everyone. He didn’t. Before the first sermon was preached… Before the first person was baptized… Before the church began multiplying… The Holy Spirit spoke to people in their own languages.
That was not a minor detail. It revealed something important about the heart of God. He wants every nation, tribe, people, and language to hear the good news of Jesus.
People Multiply in the Language of Their Hearts
A person may learn about disciple-making in a second language. But they will usually disciple their household in the language they pray in.
They will tell a Bible story to their neighbor in the language they laugh in. They will teach their children in the language spoken around the family table.
People multiply most naturally in the language of their hearts.
That is why these translations matter. When disciple-making tools exist in only one language, the original trainer often remains the bridge. But when disciples receive the tools in their own language, they can pass them to people we may never meet.
From person to person. From household to household. From village to village. From generation to generation. That is multiplication.
Help Us Make Them Better
Translation technology helped us open the door. But technology cannot be the final judge of whether a translation is natural, clear, biblically faithful, and culturally understandable. That requires brothers and sisters who know the language and love the Word of God.
If one of these is your language, please help us review it. If something sounds unnatural, tell us. If something is unclear, tell us. If anything could communicate a doctrinally inaccurate meaning, please tell us immediately.
Do not merely point out what needs correction. Help us make it better.
This is not simply a website update. It is an opportunity to place disciple-making tools into the hands of ordinary believers in the languages they think in, pray in, and use to share Jesus with others.
Somewhere, a disciple is ready to multiply. Somewhere, a household is waiting to hear. Let’s work together until every language has heard.
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