Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost is known as the first sermon of the New Testament Church. And miraculously, on this day when the gospel was first preached by the church, it was heard in every language at once.
In Acts chapter 2 Luke lists numerous different countries and languages represented in Jerusalem that day. Jews from all over the known world came back to Jerusalem for the great feasts. They were there for Pentecost, which is 50 days after Passover. And of course most of them did not speak Hebrew or Aramaic as their first language. They spoke the language from where they lived.
The disciples had remained in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension because Jesus had instructed them to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. And on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Christians, they immediately “began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” People gathered said, “We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”
At Pentecost, God showed the world that the gospel is for every tongue, tribe, people and nation.
This first “sermon,” declaring the wonders of God—the gospel itself—was given in every different language at once. If the apostles had spoken in Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek, a signal would have been sent that the gospel was primarily for one people group. But by a miracle, God made sure that no language, and therefore no culture, had precedence over any other in the Christian faith. There’s no language or culture that everybody can say, “Ah, that’s the original, and everything else sort of comes in second.” No, the Holy Spirit made the gospel understandable in many languages at once. At Pentecost, God showed the world that the gospel is for every tongue, tribe, people and nation.
This very multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-racial aspect of the gospel was of utmost importance to Tim. It’s one of the reasons that the Redeemer Church Planting Center was started, which now, 25 years later, is Redeemer City to City—which has planted or helped plant 3,000+ gospel-centered churches in that time. Now, over 37 years after Tim first preached in New York City, with God’s help, Gospel in Life is working to make the gospel-centered teaching that Tim shared in his sermons available to millions more people—by translating 500 of Tim’s sermons into 30 new languages.
You might think this isn’t a very big deal, as anyone with access to Google Translate can quickly do this. However, this project is taking a much more rigorous approach, translating into another language not only the words, but also taking into account the cultural barriers that exist between one language and another, testing the translated sermons with theologically trained, bilingual teams, bringing the manuscripts back to me to make sure that all of the nuances (and run on sentences!) that characterized Tim are still there, AND THEN, using AI to record the translated sermons in Tim’s voice.
Every time I play the translation demo for someone, and hear Tim preaching in Mandarin or Spanish or Indonesian, it brings tears to my eyes (and in most cases that’s what happens to the people I play it for, too!). To be honest, I have many concerns about AI usage from a societal, environmental, and creative standpoint. But after much due diligence, we believe that using the technology in this way is an appropriate use case that overcomes linguistic barriers while keeping Tim’s unique, personable tone and delivery. Truly, this is the first use of AI that I am actually thrilled about! And because we have trained people carefully reviewing everything that is produced, I have great confidence in the final outcome of each translated sermon.
If we are able to complete this endeavor, access to Tim’s sermons will go from approximately 20% of the world having access to his gospel-centered sermons in English to approximately 70% of the world having access in one of 30 of the world’s most spoken languages.
At the beginning of Tim’s Bible Study on the book of the Acts, he points to the unique nature of hearing the gospel in your own language:
“… through a miracle of God, every person was able to hear the Word of God in their own ‘heart language.’ Most of the people who were there in Jerusalem from so many different nations were able to communicate through the international lingua franca of koine Greek and so on. But God arranged it so that they heard the message of salvation in their own native language, the language they did their thinking and loving in.
Much of the Bible’s content is understandable even in a language that isn’t one’s primary way of speaking, and the story of the gospel is the same. A person can learn how God created the world and how because of sin we need a savior. But when a person listens to a sermon in their own language and the concepts are deeply relatable, something special happens.”
Pentecost means that the unity of the Spirit transcends all racial, national, and linguistic barriers. For centuries, biblical commentators have noted that Pentecost in Acts 2 is a reversal of the curse of Babel in Genesis 11. At Babel, the people were cursed and broken apart through linguistic division. But at Pentecost, a miracle brings people together with understanding despite linguistic barriers. The people unite “to call on the name of the Lord” (Acts 2:21). And for as long as people have been responding to the Great Commission, the Bible and the story of the gospel have been translated into other languages. The miracle at Pentecost means that the church must work to share the gospel and bring unity to Christians across all linguistic, cultural and racial barriers.
The miracle at Pentecost means that the church must work to share the gospel and bring unity to Christians across all linguistic, cultural and racial barriers.
Every month at Gospel in Life, we receive new notes and letters from people testifying to how God has used Tim’s sermons to bring them to faith, to change them, to draw them closer to God or to renew some aspect of their life. It urges us onward in the joy of sharing the gospel with more and more people. We believe God wants us to now expand access to our gospel-centered teaching and resources in order to reach millions of new people with the hope, joy and beauty of Christ’s redeeming love—in their own language.
Though the gospel message goes out to every corner of the world through many ministries and individuals, the linguistic barriers are still very real. By translating Tim’s sermons and sharing them in audio form, we believe God will use them to reach millions more with the gospel message, perhaps particularly in areas where there is lower literacy or fewer gospel-centered resources in circulation. Of everything Gospel in Life is doing, this is the endeavor that I am most excited about and that I believe Tim would have wanted—bringing the gospel message to millions more.
Tim used to say in church meetings all the time that evangelism is not an individual ministry “department,” it is part of everything we do. As my family and I work with Gospel in Life to launch and continue the Global Reach Project, my prayer is that we will follow God faithfully in our efforts to translate Tim’s gospel-centered teachings for millions more. And at the same time, my prayer is that we always remember that the Great Commission is a call to a life of witness—to seek God personally and to share the joy of the gospel with those whom God brings into our life each day, wherever we are “scattered.” And I invite you to pray with me that God will use The Global Reach Project to bring the life-changing message of Jesus Christ’s love to many more people in their own language.
