Overcoming being a foreigner
June 3, 2009
As David was reading through 1 Corinthians last week, he came across a passage that seemed to jump off the page at him. It wasn’t a hallucination, anything supernatural, maybe not even spiritual, but because the Rainers are living, breathing, eating, and sleeping the Japanese language, this verse stuck out:”There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me (14:10-11).”
English is a rich language full of meaning and because of it, people from all over the world, from many different countries and people groups can speak to one another on some level. However, many, if not most, Japanese only know English on a surface book level. Sure there are fluent English speakers who are Japanese, but it is most certainly the minority.
So no matter how fully the Rainers can communicate in English, unless they learn Japanese they and their words will be foreign to the lost living in Japan. Paul’s letter to the Romans mentions another form of communication:”For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (1:20).”
Nature communicates enough of who God is to everyone, even the Japanese, inexcusably that there is a God. And Paul writes that this leaves the Japanese with no excuse on the Day of Judgment. But, Paul writes a few chapters later: ”How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (10:14).”
And so it is safe to add, “And how will they understand the meaning of the preaching they are hearing if it is proclaimed to them in a foreign tongue? (i.e. 1 Cor 14) It would be as meaningless as the message written on the stone slab in the picture above is to you, the reader.
What Japanese behold in nature and love is only enough to condemn them without excuse. They need someone to explain the full truth to them, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they need someone to do it in their own language so that the message is not foreign to them. Please pray for the Rainers and all the IMB personnel in language training that they would be given grace to learn their language so that the peoples of the world would no longer be foreign to God, but reconciled to Him by believing in His Son, Jesus Christ.
By David Rainer, Shizuoka City
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Very good article. Know that our prayers are with you all. It is difficult to see what God will do in the future but not too difficult to see what he has done. I pray that Christ will soon show you some fruit from you labor in Japan.
terry