The Lost Book

00:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
I’m happy to say that in 2018, the Kalonga full Bible was translated, and. 

00:05
Dr. Mike Rodewald
There was much rejoicing. And the Lost book then has returned to the Kalonga. 

00:11
Rich Rudowske
People, welcome to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. I’m rich Redowski. 

00:27
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. 

00:28
Rich Rudowske
And as we reach the end of October, we mark the celebration of the reformation in the lutheran christian tradition and in a lot of other traditions, too, marking that point now, more than 500 years ago, where the church began to reflect and say, we want to return to God’s word as the center of our life as the christian church, and understand our walk in faith with Christ according to God’s word. 

00:52
Emily Wilson
And as you listeners know, we’ve been celebrating all year long the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther translating the New Testament into the vernacular German. And this is just so vital in our history to be able to see this focus on reaching out with God’s word in a language that we understand best and how that’s how our church was built was people accessing God’s word and growing deeper in it. And that’s actually what’s the focus of this episode today with Dr. Mike Rodawald, current executive director for Lutheran Bible translators. And he’s sharing a little bit about the language community that we served alongside for many years, the Kalanga in Botswana. 

01:36
Emily Wilson
And they actually have a rich history of a lost book in their faith tradition background, how they were able to communicate with God, and there was a barrier, there was a gap, and how that all unfolded with the missionaries in that context. 

01:54
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So I had the chance to talk with Mike about some of the research he did, digging in further to some of the oral traditions about that lost book history with the Kalanga. And it’s really beautiful that in 2018, when the full Bible was dedicated in the Kalanga language, part of theme was the lost book has returned. So we’re really looking forward to sharing with you some more about this history and how God was at work among the Kalanga people many years ago. All right, we are here in the studio with Dr. Mike Rodwald, executive director of Lutheran Bible translators. Welcome back to the podcast. 

02:29
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yeah, thanks, Rich. 

02:30
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Nice to be here with you again. 

02:31
Rich Rudowske
All right, Lutheran Bible translators is releasing a great little video we made a few years back called the Lost Book. And we wanted to talk some today about and kind of go behind the scenes of what eventually shows up in that only eight minute movie, the lost book set from your time in Botswana, and obviously well before that. So let’s kind of go in deep dive, talk to us about what people are going to see in the lost book, and then let’s just kind of take a deep dive on how we got there. 

03:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yeah. 

03:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Thanks, Rich. 

03:01
Dr. Mike Rodewald
I just want to acknowledge first, Lutheran Bible translators, our purpose is to provide God’s word to really remote people groups that are quite different than. 

03:11
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Ourselves here in the United States. 

03:12
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And the Kalanga people in Botswana, Zimbabwe, are one such people group. And I worked among the Kalanga people. 

03:21
Dr. Mike Rodewald
For about 15 years. 

03:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And when I first went, the language system was not well sorted out. Did some research on how the language system should work, and started finding some mysteries inside. I heard some stories about the possibility, through oral traditions, that something had happened in the past. And I found them interesting, but kind. 

03:45
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Of dismissed that these stories from people are. 

03:48
Dr. Mike Rodewald
They made up stories. 

03:50
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Where did they actually come from? 

03:52
Dr. Mike Rodewald
But as I continued on, over time, the intrigue kept coming over and over again through a couple of people I worked with. And Reverend Motibi was one of them. 

04:02
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Who was very adamant that these stories. 

04:04
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That he had collected through other generations that had come up to him, he was very adamant that these were true stories. 

04:11
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And because of that, I respected what he had to say. 

04:14
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And I listened to some of the stories and looked at them further and kind of retranslated them back into English, and all of a sudden started seeing. 

04:20
Dr. Mike Rodewald
A pattern there that, well, what if. 

04:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Something here is more than just some stories that have been dismissed throughout the. 

04:28
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Ages by special missionaries that had come before us? 

04:31
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So, anyway, one of the interesting linguistic features that I found was they had two words for God. They had a word, nzimu, and that word actually means ancestor. And Nzimu, when you capitalized it, and. 

04:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
It was really referred to the creator God and the spiritual God, understanding that Nzimu created the heavens and the earth. 

04:54
Dr. Mike Rodewald
But they also had another name for God, and that was Moali. And that particular term was called the name of God. 

05:02
Dr. Mike Rodewald
It wasn’t Nzimu, but it was who. 

05:04
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Nzimu was, and that was the name of God. And this is what the oral traditions were saying. And they were very adamant that Moli was considered to be their protector. He was a special God for the Kalanga people, the people who spoke Kalanga. And they had an whole institution around Moali. They had priests who served Moali, and Mali’s places were up on the high hills. And Moali would talk to the people, and he would inform the people of. 

05:34
Dr. Mike Rodewald
How they should act and how they should be. 

05:37
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And when enemies came. 

05:39
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Then Molly protected the people from harm, and it was a very special relationship with that. 

05:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And they respected that relationship. And they showed that linguistically by using a plural of respect for elders, for other people within the culture. If you respected someone, you used a. 

05:56
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Plural form to respect that. 

05:58
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So they used this plural pronoun to refer to Moli. They did not use that pronoun to refer to Nzimu, because Nzimu was just something that was way out there, far away. 

06:11
Dr. Mike Rodewald
But Moli was God, very close. 

06:16
Dr. Mike Rodewald
In fact, one person said, well, if you look at the hebrew history, we treat Moli very much like Yahweh. And that intrigued me. 

06:25
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so I started asking more questions. As I asked the questions, other oral traditions started coming forth. 

06:32
Dr. Mike Rodewald
There was one oral tradition about a man named Nue who hit the sea, and people crossed over the sea to. 

06:42
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Get to the other side of this body of water. 

06:46
Dr. Mike Rodewald
I thought, well, that’s kind of interesting. In the institutions themselves, in the days of old, they used to circumcise youth. 

06:53
Dr. Mike Rodewald
On the 8th day, they had to take their shoes off when they went to Mali’s places, as a way of respecting, they sacrificed to Mali. 

07:04
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And then I heard a tradition that at one time from another people group called the Balemba, that at one time they had a scroll. And the priests used to read from the scroll on the hills. And then the Arabs stole the scroll. 

07:18
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And the people no longer had priests. 

07:21
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Who could read from the scroll, but. 

07:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
They had a voice that came from the mountains, usually from a cave, and that voice informed them of what they should do. 

07:32
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So I found it intriguing and wondered. 

07:35
Dr. Mike Rodewald
How did it all fit together? 

07:37
Rich Rudowske
Okay, so you start to hear this story and these traditions, and you hear a lot of what sounds like parallel to some of themes, you know, from your own upbringing in the Old Testament scripture. So what’d you do next? 

07:47
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So I started doing wider research, and I found the way the missionaries, the. 

07:52
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Early missionaries had approached this, and of. 

07:54
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Course, they had seen the voice from. 

07:56
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The hills as a threat to what they wanted to do. 

07:58
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so they dismissed a lot of what was coming out of the hills, what was coming from the institution of Mawali. I’m not saying that’s wrong. I think that’s the best the missionaries could do at that time. But it was interesting that there are oral traditions that said that the voice on the hills predicted that people with eyes like cats would come, and they would have a book in one hand, they would have money in the other hand. 

08:22
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Though the original transcriptions say it would. 

08:25
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Have buttons in the other hand, which would. That stood for money. 

08:28
Rich Rudowske
Sure. 

08:29
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And these predictions were from. Preceded the missionaries coming in the 18 hundreds. And then when the missionaries did come in the 18 hundreds, the chiefs, everyone were very prepared. And whatever the missionaries said, they spread. 

08:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The word into their people that we should listen to these people because of this prediction that was there. And so the fantastic oral traditions that. 

08:53
Dr. Mike Rodewald
What it seems to have been was that 2500 years ago, as best I can tell, my research in Botswana, notes. 

09:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And records, this is published in articles in Botswana as in their national archives. 

09:05
Dr. Mike Rodewald
As best as we can tell from all the people groups that are around the Colonga speaking people groups, a group of jewish traders 2500 years ago came from Yemen and crossed over into Africa, came down the coast, went to Mozambique, went across into Zimbabwe, and there they. 

09:26
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Established the great Zimbabwe complex that was there. 

09:31
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And then something happened. 

09:34
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Something happened there that caused people to disperse. And great Zimbabwe was no more. 

09:39
Rich Rudowske
Right. And that’s historical record. 

09:41
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That’s all historical. 

09:43
Rich Rudowske
You can see that from lots of different sources. 

09:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yes, from different sources. 

09:47
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And it seems like it is possible that the Kalanga people maintained the worship. 

09:53
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Of Mali as Molly was their special God. 

09:57
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Of course, it became diffuse because there’s nothing written down. 

10:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
It’s just all oral tradition. And some people said, well, Molly was only a rain God or Mali was a spirit, especially in the last hundred years. But when you look at the oral. 

10:10
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Traditions that came down, we see maybe. 

10:14
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And I’m not saying it is, but it looks like it could possibly be that the Mali or Yahweh, the worship of Yahweh was initiated in Africa and. 

10:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Maintained as best as possible through an institution? 

10:26
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yeah, that’s the way it really came to us. 

10:29
Rich Rudowske
That’s fascinating. So in your research, was there any research that indicated, okay, the missionaries heard this voice, or they just knew of the story from the people? Just out of curiosity? 

10:39
Dr. Mike Rodewald
They heard the story. 

10:40
Rich Rudowske
They heard the story. So the voice had stopped because they had predicted itself. 

10:45
Dr. Mike Rodewald
When people with eyes like cats would come with the book in their hand, then you would no longer hear that voice after that. That was part of the prediction or the prophecy from the voice. 

10:57
Rich Rudowske
Right. And of course, you mentioned that those missionaries kind of dismissed that story in some way. And of course, we’d both acknowledge that, as you already said, they did the best they could. But still, let me ask, why do you think they dismissed it? And maybe what did they miss out on by not sort of leaning in and embracing that a little bit more? 

11:17
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Well, I have to ask the question, was God preparing the way? 

11:20
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And if God was preparing the way through this by rejecting it, then they. 

11:24
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Rejected much of the culture and set the culture against the new christian church that was coming into. 

11:32
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so they set themselves apart from. 

11:34
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The culture rather than bringing God’s word into the culture or saying, we can build on what would has come before. 

11:42
Rich Rudowske
Right. 

11:43
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And that was maybe the opportunity that was missed. I’m happy to say that in 2018, the Kalanga full Bible was translated, and there was much rejoicing. 

11:52
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And the lost book then has returned to the Kalanga people in many ways, and people to have God’s word through. 

12:01
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Their own language, through this language called Kalanga, which seems to be a special. 

12:06
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Set apart language from the old days that emerged from the worship of Mwali. Yeah, pretty exciting to see that fulfilled. 

12:14
Rich Rudowske
Now, does the Kalanga Bible use Mwali for God or nzimu for God, or any ideas on that one? 

12:21
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Well, that’s part of the interest of the context when you’re working in Bible translation. The first missionaries had rejected the concept of that. 

12:30
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The word Muali could have anything to do with God or anything. Then they had really identified the term moli as for a kind of the spirits on the hills, something that was not attached to the Hebrew God or in any kind of way. It was just a name for the rain God or the name for the evil spirit that was there. 

12:52
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so they did not use that in christian circles. And so once you set a tradition. 

12:57
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Of what you can do and what you cannot do by rejecting the word. 

13:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Mawali, then you have a controversy if you try to bring that back into. 

13:04
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The church, because people that have accepted Christianity and are part of the Christianity have accepted the traditions brought by the missionaries. 

13:13
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so there was a conflict between whether to use Molly as the old. 

13:17
Dr. Mike Rodewald
People had understood it, or to use Molly as the christian traditions are in the church. 

13:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
We actually had the same interesting barrier to using traditional songs as ways of. 

13:31
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Putting scripture forth, because the songs brought by the missionaries were hymns from Germany. 

13:38
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And from Europe, and that had become. 

13:41
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The traditional ways to worship God in church. And by bringing any other forms in, then it was breaking the tradition, the christian traditions, and trying to bring in cultural traditions. 

13:55
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so as went through it, we realized that not always is it. 

13:58
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Possible to use the word moli in the Bible translation, rather that the word. 

14:03
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Nzimu should be used, and often is. 

14:06
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Used in the new translation of the New Testament. 

14:10
Rich Rudowske
Sure. And that, of course, then brings to light an aspect of Bible translation that may not be apparent to all our listeners is that you’re doing this work in consultation with the community, so you’re not just kind of in a lab. Know, I’ve researched all this stuff, and obviously the correct answer is wally. There’s still that dynamic of consultation with the community and the church and the expectations and in the positive sense of the term, the compromise, the give and take. And this is not unique to the Kalanga project, that you have different options for what you might call God, and you have to work through those, and each of them have possible benefits and possible downsides. And in consultation with the church, you kind of make a choice and hopefully are united around it and go with it. 

14:54
Rich Rudowske
But it’s a fascinating story about all these parallels to the hebrew scriptures and the practices and the history. So, again, you mentioned yourself at first dismissed this, but then what kind of changed your mind and made you think, well, maybe I should listen to this more and do all of this research that resulted in a couple of articles that you wrote? 

15:15
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yeah. And I do have to say, you have to realize that the research is going on as the Bible translation is. 

15:20
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Going on, and there may be a. 

15:22
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Revision to the Bible translation someday that. 

15:24
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Maybe takes some of this research and says, well, we should revise what we have right now, because feelings will have changed, thoughts will have changed on it. 

15:33
Dr. Mike Rodewald
But many of these conclusions have come. 

15:36
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Out after the Bible translation is 99% completed. And the testing has pointed to that. This is the way the christian church wanted it at that particular time. 

15:48
Rich Rudowske
Right. 

15:49
Dr. Mike Rodewald
I found the intrigue, the questions, the unanswered questions. 

15:53
Dr. Mike Rodewald
If the pastor that I was talking to, Reverend Motibi, was really believing these. 

15:59
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Oral traditions, and he had all of. 

16:01
Dr. Mike Rodewald
These oral traditions, this data that was coming forth, the data of evidence became just overwhelming of this institution that was there, set up to worship Muwali and to keep the Kalunga people safe through. 

16:16
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The years, and I’m talking hundreds and. 

16:17
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Hundreds of years that this seems to have emerged out. 

16:20
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So the details were murky, and there. 

16:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Was nothing to go back to except these oral traditions that were being told. 

16:27
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so we wrote all those oral traditions down and referred it to Botswana. 

16:32
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Notes and records before additional research, and to see maybe things will be connected even better into the future. 

16:40
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So all we can do is, we can only ask the questions, is, was. 

16:43
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Moali the hebrew God Yahweh, that was maintained? The worship of Yahweh was maintained through these many years, through all these travels. 

16:53
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And kept the people that spoke kalanga. 

16:57
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And worship kalanga safe in that way. That was their belief, seeing through the oral traditions. 

17:03
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And I have to say, I don’t. 

17:04
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Know, but it sure is an intriguing story. 

17:07
Rich Rudowske
It definitely is. And it sort of leads to a broader topic or question that missionaries and missiologists have to deal with under a term of contextualization, if you will. So here you have, one hand, if we go back to those missionaries that came in the 18 hundreds, they have a certain idea of what their task is to do and what they have with them, and then you have the context that they were in and certain beliefs and things like that. And so then you can see sort of a scale. Like one hand, the missionaries sort of approached it as we have a certain culture and terminology, and what we bring replaces what’s already there. But another approach could have been to say, there’s a lot that lines up here and maybe there’s something redemptive in there. 

17:57
Rich Rudowske
And that kind of approaches mission then, as the idea, if I’m not bringing God with me, that God’s already there somehow, and I shouldn’t say I, he is redeeming the culture or bringing to light the truth and clarifying with the word of God. So in that whole idea of contextualization, how do you wrestle with that just now, speaking as a missiologist yourself to other folks who are also wrestling in mission, how do you begin to try to wrestle through those issues? 

18:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Well, in Lutheran Bible translators, really, we have made the nucleus of mission is. 

18:27
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Reducing the barriers to the gospel so that people can understand what God has to say to them. 

18:33
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And I do have to say those. 

18:34
Dr. Mike Rodewald
First missionaries, many years ago, they tried to do a Bible translation and they began their Bible translation. If you go back and look at it critically, it wasn’t very good. 

18:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
They tried to bring their own thoughts. 

18:45
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And put that right into the Bible. 

18:47
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Translation without really consulting with people in the culture, finding out how the people think. Rather, it was more of, we’re going. 

18:55
Dr. Mike Rodewald
To tell you exactly what God’s word has to say. 

18:59
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And that is one approach, and it. 

19:01
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Was an early approach that we did in Bible translation, or I’m going to say the Bible translation movement did. 

19:07
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The approach now is so much more is that let’s work with people in. 

19:11
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The community so that God’s word addresses what God has to say in ways that the community understands and hits the felt needs of the community. 

19:23
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That doesn’t mean you change God’s word, anything, but you’re reducing the barriers. The gospel is all it needs to be. But if we put up barriers by bad translation. 

19:31
Dr. Mike Rodewald
If we put up barriers by bringing. 

19:33
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Forms from outside that people do not understand, they do not see God in those forms, then we have raised barriers. 

19:40
Dr. Mike Rodewald
To what God is trying to do in that culture, which is call people to him, call people into his story of salvation through the gospel. 

19:48
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so that is our approach in Lutheran Bible translators. How do we reduce the barriers? 

19:53
Rich Rudowske
Right. And there are barriers to the gospel in any case. Right. Even if the missionaries, when they first came or at any point along the line, said, okay, we see this context and we see these beliefs. There are still barriers to the gospel because they are not driven from the gospel. Like, at a certain point, it even says in scripture that it’s apparent and evident by creation that there is a creator. But you can’t know that there’s a God who loves you or a savior named Jesus who redeemed you unless somebody proclaims that to you. So there’s still barriers. But I think that what you’ve really made clear is not only are you looking for ways to reduce barriers to the gospel, you’re also looking to try to ensure that you don’t create new ones. You want to comment on that? 

20:34
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And generally, our human propensity is to erect barriers. 

20:41
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Even when we do it unknowingly, even. 

20:43
Dr. Mike Rodewald
When we move forward with great intentions, sometimes we erect barriers and we only find those. It is a challenge to find the. 

20:51
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Barriers that we have raised up and say, it’s not working. People are not perceiving the gospel through those particular forms. 

20:58
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And I do have to say of those first missionaries, they did their best, but all they knew was their form. 

21:03
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Of Christianity from Europe when they came in the 18 hundreds. And so they reduplicated those particular forms of Christianity. 

21:12
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Certain people were attracted to that, but the majority were not. 

21:16
Dr. Mike Rodewald
It just set up a kind of. 

21:17
Dr. Mike Rodewald
A parallel understanding of what the gospel was. 

21:21
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The people who practiced these forms, that they didn’t really understand what was happening, but they were faithful in it, versus the people who said, we’re not getting anything out of that, the Gospel. That’s why I’m ecstatic that the Bible translation has come to the Kalonga people. 

21:36
Dr. Mike Rodewald
They can read God’s word for themselves. 

21:38
Dr. Mike Rodewald
They can discover what God is having. 

21:40
Dr. Mike Rodewald
To say to them. And especially when God’s word comes through your own language, that’s the biggest barrier you have. When you can’t understand what God’s word. 

21:48
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Has to say, or you cannot understand. 

21:50
Dr. Mike Rodewald
The forms the gospel is encapsulated in. 

21:54
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Nothing’s happening with that. 

21:56
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, absolutely. Just on the day that we’re recording here in our staff devotions, we just read or listened to in living Water, acts 22, where it begins with Paul in front of this huge riot that’s making all this commotion and he’s been speaking to the guys in the barracks in Greek, but he turns around and starts to speak in the language of the Hebrews to the people and immediately they’re quiet as know he removed, even in that case, all the barriers to listening to what he had to say. And that’s one of the really cool things about working in language as a strategy for mission and reducing barriers is to find that way. So, sorry, maybe I should let you comment on that. 

22:30
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yeah, no such. It’s a way that’s looking at things backwards is rather than saying what we’re doing is how do we make the gospel more effective? The gospel is all that needs to be. 

22:40
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Rather, let’s take the barriers down so that people can see Jesus Christ in what we’re proclaiming. 

22:44
Speaker 5
Yeah. 

22:44
Rich Rudowske
So now let’s say it’s 2022, going into 2023, let’s say that somewhere in the world there’s a missionary going to a place, a new place, or one of the many churches that we’re partnered with that’s moving out into the next language community next to them, and they’re starting to work on how to share the gospel with them. And maybe they would encounter any kind of story similar to what you’ve mentioned here. So it’s all hypothetical. Right. But from your messyological background and perspective, what could they learn from your research here and what was done in the Kalanga project? 

23:20
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Well, that’s in Lutheran Bible translators. One thing we are, we’re learners first. 

23:25
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And we’re missionaries second. 

23:27
Dr. Mike Rodewald
We need to learn where the barriers. 

23:29
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Are so that we can reduce those barriers. I just kind of shuddered some of the things I did early in my. 

23:34
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Career, unknowingly dismissing from my own knowledge. 

23:38
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Base, which was fairly limited, but really. 

23:42
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Seeing God at work in a bigger. 

23:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Way and being open to seeing God at work in a bigger way, even. 

23:48
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Though I may see something and I. 

23:50
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Don’T understand if the local people are perceiving it and it’s pointing to who Jesus is, I think it could be a positive experience for them. 

24:00
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And God is calling them through the. 

24:04
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Gospel into the story of their salvation and they respond when they experience that. And so let me not get in the way. How can I work with them so. 

24:13
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That through relationship we both grow in Christ together? 

24:16
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And so let’s say there’s a listener out there that’s saying, okay, that sounds really good, but that also sounds dangerous. And how do we not slip into something that just becomes syncretism or something like that? How would you respond to that? 

24:29
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That is totally the mean. 

24:31
Dr. Mike Rodewald
How do you find that middle ground? 

24:32
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Because it’s so easy to be criticized if you jump one side or the other side. 

24:37
Dr. Mike Rodewald
On the other hand, I’ve seen syncretism where people, especially in Africa, think that. 

24:42
Dr. Mike Rodewald
If you go to church every Sunday. 

24:44
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Somehow you’re pleasing God. 

24:46
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And that’s a syncretistic act, thinking, my act makes God to be happy. 

24:52
Dr. Mike Rodewald
So we have to be so careful. 

24:53
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That we don’t jump off on either side of that. 

24:56
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And how do we learn and marvel. 

24:58
Dr. Mike Rodewald
At what God is doing in the world? 

25:00
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, that’s true. And I don’t think that’s only in Africa, where people think that, too. Sometimes if we really examine how we’re approaching God, we could probably find some syncretism in our own lives, too. 

25:11
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Yeah, there’s a story from when I was in 8th grade and I had. 

25:14
Dr. Mike Rodewald
A pair of socks and I called. 

25:17
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Them my lucky socks. 

25:18
Dr. Mike Rodewald
When I wore those socks, I played basketball better than when I did not wear those socks. 

25:25
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And that is a total syncretistic act. 

25:28
Dr. Mike Rodewald
In the sense that my action by putting on these socks made me play basketball better. I never cracked the first team, so. 

25:35
Dr. Mike Rodewald
I wasn’t too good. 

25:36
Dr. Mike Rodewald
But my belief was that I could do something that made something called luck, some spiritual power do something. 

25:43
Dr. Mike Rodewald
And so our human nature is to look at what we do and somehow. 

25:47
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Think we’re gaining favor from God. It’s just the opposite of that. God is, he has given us his son, Jesus Christ. It’s the first act we respond to what he has done, and that is serving in God’s mission. Yep. 

26:01
Rich Rudowske
And so counter to, I think, our human nature. And it’s just amazing how universally the impulse within humanity, whether christian or have never heard of Christ or other religions, there’s still this idea that I need to do something so then I can be in the right space and the just earth changing, the world changing message of Christianity is God has acted definitively in Jesus Christ, and you can respond. 

26:26
Dr. Mike Rodewald
To that, and that’s the message of scripture. I mean, this is the 500th anniversary. 

26:30
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Of Luther’s translation of the german New Testament into common german. 

26:36
Dr. Mike Rodewald
That changed the world because people had. 

26:38
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Access to the gospel, the barriers were removed. Now that translation has been revised over and over as languages change, as people has changed, but the gospel is still the same. We continue to remove barriers wherever we find them, however we find them. But in the meantime, we’re doing our best that the gospel goes forth into the whole world. 

26:56
Rich Rudowske
Well, thank you very much for being with us today. It’s fascinating research and just an amazing story of how God may have been at work in the world in ways that we don’t often expect. But that’s kind of who God is, right? He works in ways we don’t expect and invites us to respond. So appreciate you being with us today and Sharon. And we’re looking forward to the lost. 

27:14
Dr. Mike Rodewald
Book video, and you will enjoy the video. 

27:17
Dr. Mike Rodewald
It brings some visual to the story. It’s not boring like me talking or anything else, but it does bring some visual to it and gives a picture of what this means to the Kalanga people and how God is faithful to us throughout the ages. 

27:36
Rich Rudowske
Again, every time I watch the video that we’re going to share with the listeners and then have that conversation with Mike and digging this, I’m always impressed at just and wondering about how God is at work and things that we don’t expect in ways we don’t expect. And in my experience, it’s just part of who God is that he’s going to act in ways that you don’t expect. And so you should be ready for that, right? 

28:00
Emily Wilson
Not placing God in that box and how he’s building bridges and preparing people’s hearts to receive his word is just incredible. One of my pastors growing up, he talked about very much what we very often call within our church background of common grace, like things in creation that point to him as our creator. And then as we grow in our faith, seeing him as our redeemer, our sustainer. But he said, this pastor said, every leaf on every tree is a post it note from God saying, I am here, right. And just how he was working in and through Kalanga people and their oral tradition and being able to build those bridges and how God’s word ultimately, in their own language, brings hope and light. 

28:53
Rich Rudowske
And it does ultimately illustrate that at a certain point, all of that points to God. But still, somebody has to come along and say, there’s Jesus and God loves you, and here’s the evidence, Jesus. And then let’s point back to all that other stuff and now reframe it in who we know we are, in our identity in Christ. And here’s how God’s been telling you all along. 

29:17
Emily Wilson
Yeah, absolutely. So we hope that you were enriched by this episode. We want to encourage you. You’ll see in the show notes the video of the lost book at the dedication of the Kalanga full Bible in 2018. So you’ll want to check that video out in the show notes. And we want to encourage you as well. We want this Bible translation movement that we get to be a part of, to be a household name, if you will, for people around the world to celebrate Bible translation ministry. So we want to encourage you, if you have been encouraged by this podcast, if you have been enlightened, if there’s been a tidbit that you are just really wanting to share with your friends, family, neighbors, to share this podcast out with the world. 

30:05
Rich Rudowske
Absolutely. And if you’re listening on whatever podcast platform you use, there’s almost inevitably going to be some kind of button to share. You push that and it’ll give you a social media option. So if you use Facebook or know push that and it’ll share it out there, you have a chance to put a little note there. If you listened by clicking on an email. Just forward that email to some folks and share this content. We’d really love to have more people really digging in and being encouraged by how God’s at work around the world. Thank you for listening to the essentially. 

30:39
Speaker 5
Translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. You can find past episodes of the podcast@lbt.org slash podcast or subscribe on audible, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible translators’social media channels on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s word in their hands. The essentially translatable podcast is produced and edited by Andrew Olson. Our executive producer is Emily Wilson. Podcast artwork was designed by Caleb Rodowald and Sarah Rodowski. Music written and performed by Rob White. I’m rich Radowski. So long for now.