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In Athens, Paul debated with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. What did these two schools of philosophy believe? "A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him… Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?” - Acts 17:18-19 The Epicureans and the Stoics were two of the main Greek schools of thought in Paul’s day. This event was one of Paul’s earliest attempts to evangelise a group without any prior understanding of the Jewish religion. Epicureans believed that the gods were uninvolved in human affairs. They regarded the ultimate good in life to be the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Stoics believed that there was a cosmic deity which governed the universe who also did not get involved in human life. Their conclusion was that the ultimate good was to seek virtue, and avoid suffering by overcoming destructive emotions. In this respect, they were not so different from the Pharisees! In response to both schools of philosophy, Paul presented to them a God who was not only Creator of everything, but a Father who was intimately involved in the lives of his creatures; a God who would not only be the Judge, but also gave his Son as the Saviour.

by Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance No conversation about the global Bible translation movement today is complete without mention of oral Bible translation and its impact. OBT grew from oral Bible storying, and is a strategic centerpiece in plans for every living language to have Scripture soon. First, these short definitions: Oral Bible storying (OBS): a Scripture engagement activity used to help introduce listeners to the Bible. A set of stories based on Scripture is crafted, learned, practised and ultimately shared. Oral Bible translation (OBT): Translating Scripture from an audio recording in one language to an audio recording in the target language — often with no writing required. For this article, we have combined a series of email and Zoom interviews into a conversation about oral Bible translation. Voices included are: Swapna Alexander, Lead Bible Translation Consultant, Faith Comes By Hearing Bryan Harmelink, Wycliffe Global Alliance Director for Collaboration Youngshin Kim, a YWAM leader in OBT training Let’s address this right away: Is there any sort of negative competition between OBT efforts and traditional, written Bible translation? Bryan Harmelink: No one working in OBT is trying to proclaim any kind of “OBT or nothing” kingdom in the Bible translation movement. But there are people who feel like OBT is the way the remaining translation needs are going to be met. OBT is sometimes seen as an intermediate step in a community that eventually will translate a printed Bible, right? Bryan Harmelink: Definitely. And I think there will be some places where there are restrictions on distributing print Bibles, where there may never be a widely distributed print Bible. And so OBT may be the best way in some high security situations to have Scripture available. I think there’s been a tendency in a lot of the work that’s been done on orality, and in the Bible translation world, that for a long period of time was just meant the people involved in oral Bible storying. The move toward OBT is, in a sense, pushing the oral Bible storying methodology to a level that the results can be referred to as translation. Bryan, you have said there’s a false dichotomy between what we have known as literate cultures and oral cultures. Can you expand on that thought? Bryan Harmelink: There’s a common tendency to make this kind of oral-versus-print culture or oral-versus-literate. And some colleagues I know working in these areas now are trying to talk more about multimode modality. We all deal with, and live in the midst of, a mixture of things that are communicated orally, things that are communicated in print and things that are much more visual. For some societies—and even people within what we call highly literate societies—essentially all of their interaction is oral: radio, podcasts, television, music, YouTube. But — and this is where some of the multimodality comes in — digital media already enforces or creates expectations of multiple modalities. You don’t get very far on YouTube, unless you’re just randomly clicking things, until you need some reading ability to choose the videos that you want. Same on your phone. To find certain things, you’ve got to have a certain level of using text, so to speak. But your preference may be that once you get what you’re looking for, then it’s all processed orally. Some of the literature has characterized literate people as the ones who can think in abstract concepts. I think we have to question a lot of that way of thinking. There are so many incredible abilities and capacities of those who don’t use print. Their recall, their memory and their communication ability are phenomenal. So it’s always hard to find the right terms to refer appropriately to different groups of people. Swapna, you mentioned in your Global Connect conversation with Bryan that you have found OBT to be a spiritual exercise, where written translation sometimes can become more of an academic exercise. Could you expand a little on this? Certainly, written translation can have great spiritual value as well. But how has OBT been different for you as a consultant? Swapna Alexander : First, let me apologize if in any way I hinted that a written translation project is not spiritual. That was not my intent at all. What I meant to say is that when we internalize a passage and make it our own, it talks to us in a different way than when we write it down. Internalization requires careful attention to the content in order to reproduce it orally as one’s own. The passage has to become our own, and in the process we identify with the content and it is taken to the emotional level. One of the saddest comments I heard from a written translator long ago was, “I am translating the Bible, but it does not do anything to me spiritually. I am in no way edified.” I ran the comment through a senior translator and she responded that it is true, but she is impacted when she does OBT. I was shocked, as my experience was different. Our team of translators were really engaged with the content intellectually and emotionally. I attribute this difference to the components of orality we had in our project. One of the OBT translators I work with told me, “When we internalize stories, we get into the story and we become a part of the story. This is a very enjoyable experience.” As I listen to OBT, I can feel the heart of the translator coming through. It is as though they are telling me their own stories. They themselves are surprised by the response of the people. Bryan Harmelink: In a sense, what you find through the methodologies being used for OBT is a much more immediate engagement with Scripture. And even reversing the order that we’ve traditionally had of “do translation, then people engage with Scripture.” In the OBT process — and sign languages are similar in this way — there’s a lot of discussion that has to happen around the questions that need to be answered in order to translate. Say, when you read, “Jesus wept” — the text doesn’t indicate any emotion. I mean, it has a word that indicates emotion. But when you translate that orally, you have no choice but to give it some emotional feeling. Otherwise, it’s not a good oral communication of that. And so what do you do in situations where you just don’t know what the tone of voice was? What the attitude was? A lot of things like that have to be discussed when you’re going to do an audio product. A print translation doesn’t always require that. Are we seeing a shift in translation priorities in some communities, then? Bryan Harmelink: This idea of changing or reversing the order of things is very possible. Scripture engagement is one of the goals with a group of people in a community, say, engaging with that story of Jesus and Lazarus. And out of that Scripture engagement activity, translation activity can emerge, with an almost better basis of understanding because of the level of engagement with Scripture. And so in that sense, this allows for much more direct spiritual engagement with people in the process of translation. People saw the value of oral Bible storying as kind of a stepping stone toward use of the printed. Oral Bible storying was a more immediate way for people to gain access to the Scriptures. And I think that is what Swapna was getting at — all of the conversation and discussion that is a part of the oral Bible translation process is a much more immediate spiritual experience for the participants than a few people who are capable of doing the written translation while others have to wait until the translation is made available. Can OBT work for non-narrative sections of Scripture? How would it work for, say, the book of Romans? Or for passages like the parts in Exodus that give God’s instructions for building the tabernacle? Swapna Alexander: I would say that it is possible to orally translate non-narrative sections of the Bible because people talk all the time, and they talk in different genres, not just stories. So the key to translating different genres orally is in identifying the genre and its function and understanding the content (which in Pauline epistles is not easy). Once the translation advisor does the above two, he/she needs to communicate this to the translators creatively and effectively. Bryan Harmelink calls it “conversational discovery of meaning.” While translating the book of Romans, we can start by talking about Paul’s arguments and his logic, discuss the context and even dramatizing. In the project I worked with, we decided that there is another character(s) who is questioning Paul and asking questions like “What then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace abounds?” And Paul responds, “No way!” This helped us internalize Romans well. I have not done Exodus with a team, but I would start with talking about how to, say, build a house/furniture etc. and get into the “procedural text mode” and then talk about the content of the passage, even act it out to build memory and clarify the action verbs, and then translate orally. It is not easy and it takes hard work, but it is achievable. Not just achievable, probably better translated also. Bryan Harmelink: That’s a very common question. But, sometimes I wonder if it’s not a reaction of someone who is primarily print-oriented and literate. It’s very easy for those of us with those tendencies not to recognize the incredible memory capacity of those who live in a narrative, oral world. Those of us who consider ourselves literate think, Oh, we’ve got to have all these OBT methodologies for helping people remember and memorize and internalize. I’ve heard … comments about some people who have been trained in this way. And they’re like, “Why do you keep repeating this? We already know it. You already told it to us once. Why are you repeating it three or four times?” I did participate in an experiment with part of the book of Colossians. And it was very challenging. I’ve heard that other people have done some of Paul’s letters with good success. And people have even internalized, say, the book of Galatians, and are able to retell the entire book and perform it in an oral way. It’s possible, but you do face challenges that are not that you don’t find with story. My wife was telling me about a family. Someone had found a baseball card that he had as a child. And he was shocked that he could repeat, from memory, every statistic of that player from that card that he had seen years before. Now, I’m not saying everyone who is an oral communicator is like a digital recorder and just replays everything. But yet, many people will have incredible capacity that we almost don’t believe is possible—because (we reason if) we can’t do it, then nobody can do it. What do you think accounts for the OBT momentum in these past few years? Bryan Harmelink: One important piece, I think, is Faith Comes by Hearing and the development of the software Render . Even though there have been limitations in the software, new versions are going to be much more flexible and easier to use, which is the way things normally go. In 2018 … we brought together a multi-agency group of people to talk about some of these things. Not that we wanted in this group to enforce or make everyone follow the methodology that we might be discussing. Just to come together as a multi-agency group and have a good conversation about, what is it when we talk about oral Bible translation? I thought maybe eight or 10 people would be interested in attending. Thirty showed up! And a lot of partnerships and connections came out of that week together that might not have happened otherwise. Another factor in the enthusiasm has been YWAM. There are a couple decades of history of interest there. Today (27 Sept.) is the first day of what they are referring to as the Mega OBT school. It has five locations simultaneously participating in the school. Youngshin Kim, YWAM: We have 80 students and 12 staff from 16 nations participating. We do have five countries – Papua New Guinea, the U.S. (Kona, Hawaii), Nigeria, South Africa, Switzerland. We had a very good start with a big picture — the vision of Every Tribe Every Nation and what God is doing among YWAM. Loren Cunningham (YWAM founder) encouraged these students to take hold of this task and emphasized the significance of Bibles on a local level. This initiative could lead to a great spiritual awakening in the world. I think at least 70 percent of the students are in their 20s and 30s. This is certainly my highlight to see so many young people in the school! Are there other factors contributing to the OBT momentum? Bryan Harmelink: Perhaps just the realization that it’s not about acceleration. It’s more about the more-immediate access for the church to Scripture that will communicate widely to more people. And in some places, they may not even focus much on audio recording. They might prefer to have people in the churches who then go from place to place, telling these passages of Scripture. And the churches, activities and discipleship and evangelism might prefer to have storytellers rather than a recorded audio version, even though the audio version would be an important part of what the project would work on. But this is a way for there to be more direct, immediate use of Scripture in the church. So I think that’s part of the enthusiasm. Some people have talked about how the oral translation method gives us a way to make our written translation more natural. I’m not convinced that’s really the point. The real question for me is, whether translation is being done in written form, an oral, audio form or in sign language— translation is best done on the basis of as thorough understanding as we can have of the Scripture to be translated. If the translator just “kind of” thinks they understand what Jesus was talking about, his translation is probably going to “kind of” give the idea of what Jesus was talking about. And it’s not like we can have 100 percent comprehension of every part of Scripture, but (we can) develop a thorough understanding through multiple hearings and readings and discussion and asking all kinds of questions. Better translation will result from better understanding of the biblical text. In a sense, it seems so simple. But sometimes I feel like translators are sitting down in front of Paratext and beginning at chapter one, verse one, before they really have a grasp of what it is they’re jumping into. And so, the more holistically developed our understanding can be of something like Paul’s relationship with the Philippian believers, the better the translation of Philippians. That kind of thing is not found in the word-by-word pieces of those books. It’s by developing a more holistic understanding of things that even the book itself doesn’t say. But we know about Paul’s relationship or the health of the church in those locations and other things. So I think there’s great potential in some of the OBT processes in even strengthening written translation practices. Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe Global Alliance

Laughter is a basic and universal human vocalisation to express positive emotions. It usually sounds something like hahaha or hohoho . In English, haha and lol (laughing out loud) are the most common ways to laugh online. But do people from other languages and cultures laugh online in the same way? Apparently, no! Since the sound of laughter is pretty much the same in any language, some different expressions of online laughter are just due to orthography. For example: Spanish – jajaja (in Spanish, j sounds like the English h ) Greek/Russion – xaxaxa (their x sounds like the English h ) And in languages which do not use a Roman script: Arabic – the equivalent of hhhhh (because they do not write short vowels) Korean – the equivalent of kk or hhh (the sound transcribed as k is highly aspirated) Mandarin – the equivalent of hahaha or hehehe Then there are others which use Roman letters to stand for something in their own language: Japanese – www ( warai is Japanese for laugh ) Indonesian – wkwkwk ( w stands for gue which means I ; k stands for ketawa which means laugh ) But the most unusual one, in my opinion, is this one: Thai – 55555 (in Thai, the number 5 is pronounced – you guessed it – ha !) Hahaha is not a term required in Bible translation, but this does provide a light-hearted illustration of how terms may not translate easily from language to language!

by Wycliffe US How could God use a trombone player in missions? Chris Gassler wondered the same thing. As a child, Chris had always wanted to play the trombone professionally, but after years of playing and teaching trombone at the university level, he was starting to feel a bit bored. After talking to his pastor, Chris took a couple of short-term trips overseas with his church and was hooked. “I was ready to do just about anything!” Chris laughed. “But my wife said no. She told me I needed to consider how I might use my skills and education [in missions].” A few months later, Chris was researching different missions organizations and came across Wycliffe’s website. “I clicked on personnel needs, and the first one that that came up was for ethnomusicology and EthnoArts [which] intrigued me because I was actually teaching a class at the time called ‘World Music and Culture.’ Seeing that job was the first revelation that people use world music as a platform for cross-cultural missions. I called the director of [Wycliffe’s] EthnoArts program out of the blue, and we talked for a few hours on the phone.” When Chris told his wife about the possibility, she was immediately on board. “It's pretty easy to understand [why] translating [the Bible] into a person’s language is important,” Chris said. “Arts is another form of communication. When I saw that connection, it suddenly made sense. … And that’s how I made my career change.” Now Chris is an EthnoArts consultant and has spent the last 10 years with his wife, Lori, and their three kids coordinating EthnoArts initiatives across several African countries. ROLE OF ETHNOARTS “In order to ... make a difference and spark that lightbulb moment, you need to touch people in their heart. That’s what EthnoArts does,” Chris said. The goal of EthnoArts is to empower local language communities to use their cultural artistic values to develop biblical-based content. EthnoArts is driven by three core values: be with the community, learn from the community and work together toward Kingdom goals. Those first two steps are hard since each culture has their own artistic values and those values may not be easily understood across other cultures. “For example, when one of my Cameroonian colleagues rides in my vehicle and hears jazz, she doesn’t understand it,” Chris said. “She doesn’t think music without words makes any sense.” Chris knows that the same is true for him. He might see a piece of art or listen to a musical style from another culture that doesn’t make sense to him. “I have to understand where beauty lies in that particular culture and respect their values,” he said. EthnoArts specialists work with the local community to help them identify their Kingdom goals. Community ownership of the arts projects is crucial in order for the local community to be able to reproduce it after the EthnoArts consultant has left. “We want the community at the forefront [of the project], making decisions and owning it,” Chris explained. Once the goals are determined, the EthnoArts specialist uses activities and tools such as recordings, workshops and research to help the community learn how to incorporate Scripture into their artistic traditions. SONGWRITING WORKSHOPS One of Chris’ most common tasks is facilitating songwriting workshops. In these workshops, participants learn how to merge their own artistic values with biblical concepts and Scripture. “We aren’t changing their culture,” Chris explained. “We’re bringing biblical content to their culture so they are still singing the same styles of songs.” After assuring the community that they are the experts in their own artistic style, Chris and his colleagues lead them through a short study of a piece of Scripture. “We digest the Scripture together,” Chris said, “and then encourage them to write songs, using styles or genres that appropriately fit the message of the Scripture.” One time, Chris held a songwriting workshop with the Baca people of Cameroon on Philippians 2:4-11. During the workshop, the participants developed several songs about Jesus being a leader who came as a servant. As some local leaders listened to the songs, they were struck deeply by the message. “Do you think we could [become servants like Jesus] in our own community?” they asked each other. In their culture, it was not considered appropriate for a leader to humbly serve others, but Jesus’ example finally made sense to them through the song! Since then, a local women’s Bible study began adding further verses to the song, and it became a staple in the community’s churches. RESEARCH IS LOVE Another aspect of Chris’ job is showing love and value to local communities by researching their artistic styles. One time Chris visited the Niku*, minority people group living in a major city, to hold a songwriting workshop. But the workshop was a disaster. The Niku were oppressed by a majority people group in the city, and wouldn’t speak their own language or teach it to their children for fear of retribution. The community leaders told Chris it was a bad idea for them to write songs in their own language; it would only stir up trouble. At the end of the long day, only one song was written and most of the workshop attendees had left after lunch. Another aspect of Chris’ job is showing love and value to local communities by researching their artistic styles. Chris felt disheartened, but the trip wasn’t finished. Chris was also supposed to visit a remote Niku village, far away from the influence of the oppressive majority group. In that village, the Niku were proud of their language and still taught it to their children. “One of my colleagues [told people] that I was coming, and people traveled for days to meet us, Chris said. “We just wanted to learn their music, so we filmed and recorded as much music as people wanted to play and that was it.” Chris and his team spent the night there recording and left the next day. A few months later, Chris got a phone call from a friend who worked with the Niku. “You’ll never guess what happened,” he said. “The Niku in the city who had rejected their language got wind that we had gone to the [village] to record their music. They decided since we did that, we must actually be serious about their language. They’ve started meeting on Thursday nights for a Bible study to write songs, and they now have four songs they want you to record!” Since that day, the Niku community has been spending focused time in Scripture, discovering the value of their language and culture. EMBEDDING GOD’S WORD As Chris looks back on his life, he can see how God has worked so many things together to prepare him for a ministry in EthnoArts, including his classical trombone career. “I love the EthnoArts colleagues I work with around the globe,” Chris said. “I’ve never been with a group that has more respect for each other and genuine love and concern. They are the best people in the world to work with!” Through EthnoArts, God’s Word can embed deeply in a community and culture, bringing transformation. “We take for granted the forms of expression that we use and how much they draw our hearts [to God] in the moment of worship,” Chris reflected. “When you see communities accessing [God’s] throne room of grace with their local language and art forms, you begin to realize how deeply these features are rooted in us. It is beautiful.” * Name changed. Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe US

How did the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, indirectly help Paul in his missionary journeys? Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, established a time of peace and order which extended from Syria in the east to Spain in the west. A network of Roman roads had been gradually built over the years, and he had these improved, extended and maintained to make travel across the empire safer and faster. Major Roman roads were about 6 m wide, level and straight, with mile markers to indicate the distance to the next city. The roads were underlaid with layers of gravel and small stones, with a top layer of large flat stones, cambered for good drainage. Paul, walking long distances on his missionary journeys, would have made use of some of these Roman roads: Via Sebaste: from Perga, through Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, to Lystra (1st missionary journey – Acts 13:13-14:20). Via Egnatia: from Philippi to Thessalonica (2nd missionary journey – Acts 16:12-17:9). Via Appia: from Puteoli to Rome (3rd missionary journey – Acts 28:11-16).

A few of us from the dialect storying team attended an online webinar, “How to Lead an Oral Bible Story Group Session” conducted by members of Cru . They demonstrated ways of running an oral Bible story group session with about 5-6 participants. The participants would learn and craft Bible stories, and practise telling them so they can share the stories in their communities. Telling Bible stories has been shown to be an effective way to share the gospel in the listeners’ heart language. They explained the steps to help participants learn a Bible story orally: Telling and re-telling the story. Inviting participants to tell the story in parts. Employing methods for remembering the story, such as drama, actions, story boards, and a method known as “right-or-wrong” (more on this below!). Inviting participants to engage with the story by reflecting on what they liked or disliked about the story, and what they learnt about God and/or Jesus through the story. The story told during the webinar was quite a long portion of the book of Acts. It covered Peter’s healing of a lame beggar (Acts 3:1-10), the Peter’s sermon (Acts 3:11-26), Peter and John’s arrest, and the increase in the number of believers (Acts 4:1-4). We noticed that the story had included more details on the healing of the beggar, but summarised Peter’s sermon to a few key points which kept the story to under 3.5 minutes. We thought that picking out key points was a technique worth learning to keep the length of the story manageable. It also made the long discourse more understandable and accessible to listeners. I enjoyed the “right-or-wrong” method for remembering details in the story. This method involves the storyteller intentionally telling parts of the story wrongly, so that participants can call him/her out on the wrong details and correct the story. I found it to be an engaging and safe way for participants to think through the details of the story without the pressure of having to retell the whole story. This is a method I am keen to try in future storying events run by Wycliffe Singapore. Read more about Cru’s programme Storyrunners . There are other courses held on the platform EMDC .

One of the multiple spin-offs of the daily word game, Wordle , is the Singlish version, Word-leh . Created by Singaporean Sha-Mayn Teh who is based in New York, Word-leh was first shared with friends on 1 Feb 2022, then released to the public on 8 Feb. After just one day, nearly 10,000 people were playing it! She says that its popularity has surprised her. It really isn’t surprising, really. Singlish, the variety of English widely spoken in Singapore, is integral to the Singaporean identity. Especially when overseas, it’s one of the first ways Singaporeans identify one another, and speaking Singlish immediately builds a bond between Singaporeans. As Sha-Mayn Teh says, “For me, Singlish is about community and culture, and it's a way of keeping a connection to Singapore wherever I go.” Singlish is a unique hybrid of English with words and grammar borrowed from the languages of the ethnic groups who have made Singapore their home. Word-leh ’s appeal combines the attractive simplicity of Wordle with the unique vocabulary of Singlish, incorporating words and grammar from languages such as Malay, Hokkien and English. Which other word game would have answers like dowan , bojio , sibeh and boleh ? Some comments from a small sample of Singaporeans who play Word-leh : “I have a sense of satisfaction that I am Singaporean”, “I have special access to/knowledge of a list of words that other English speakers don't know”, “it’s close to home and relatable”. Although all these people would declare that standard English is their first and strongest language, Singlish touches their hearts in a special way. With this understanding of the unique role the “heart language” plays in reaching every people group, Wycliffe Bible Translators and partner organisations continue to press on to translate God’s Word for every nation, tribe, people and language.

What was the ‘purple cloth’ that Lydia of Thyatira dealt in? "One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth." - Acts 16:14 From as early as 1500 BCE, Phoenicians had started using the reddish-purple dye made from the secretions of several species of sea snails. Extracting the dye involved large quantities of snails and was labour-intensive. The dye did not easily fade but actually brightened with weathering and sunlight. Hence, the dye, and the dyed cloth, was highly valued. During the 1st century CE, Thyatira, in present-day Turkey, was a famous centre for dyeing and trading in purple cloth. It had a Christian church, one of the recipients of the Seven Letters to the Churches in Revelation 2-3. Paul met Lydia in Philippi in Greece, very soon after he had crossed over to Europe. She was probably an agent for a firm in Thyatira which traded in the purple dye or and dyed fabric. She is considered the first documented Christian convert in Europe. After her conversion, she offered hospitality to Paul and his companions while they remained in Philippi.

by Deb Fox, Wycliffe Australia Alan and Lucy Rogers are Wycliffe members and have been serving with AuSIL in Northern Australia since 1986. They initially helped with translation among the Garrwa people then moved into audio and media Scripture engagement across many language groups. For the last three years, Alan has been the interim Director of Australian Society for Indigenous Languages (AuSIL) but passed on his responsibilities to Phillip Townsend this year. Lucy has years of experience in ‘ethnoarts’: ethnic arts that are empowering local language communities to create visual art, music, dance and drama representations of Scripture in a culturally-relevant way. Lucy says that there are positive signs of ethnoarts being recognised as a valuable way of engaging in local culture: There has been a growing interest in ethnoarts in both the secular and Christian worlds. We have found that when Indigenous Australians engage in local art forms within their communities, it speaks to others in their language group who might not otherwise have been interested in hearing about God. Among Indigenous Australians, there is a huge swing towards the use of arts. This has a huge effect on the maintenance of language and culture, allowing for freedom in expression but also for passing on information in a way that is culturally relevant. Lucy explains how early government and missionary efforts among Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities often viewed non-Western cultural practices as ‘evil’: This has had a detrimental effect on how many Indigenous Christians perceive their culture. Just because a person becomes a Christian, it doesn’t mean they have to give up eating with a knife and fork or setting the table a certain way. In the same way, not all Indigenous culture should be discarded. Ethnoarts enable language groups to discover aspects of their culture they can bring to God and use for his glory. As Lucy explains: We need to encourage Indigenous churches to engage in dialogue as they seek direction from God about what is permissible within their culture. Language groups such as the Warlpiri have adapted their iconographs to tell Bible stories. In Arnhem Land, there is a group of ladies exploring ways of using some of their dance forms for God—they feel this is from God but are waiting on their elders to approve this use. Yet other language groups have not done this and may frown upon it. Unfortunately, language usage has changed a great deal since Alan and Lucy first moved to the north of Australia. Many young people no longer speak the language of their parents and grandparents. However, Lucy says that the production of audio Scripture and music in Garrwa and other Indigenous languages is helping to revive language, particularly in church settings. Lucy says that the songwriters workshops she facilitates are always a highlight: We have been involved in many songwriting workshops since 1987. Some are held in our AuSIL centre, others in the community. It is lovely to encourage folk to seek God by writing songs, to base their songs on God’s Word and to see people working together to worship God in their preferred musical style. It is a real joy and privilege to be involved in the whole process, from recording many of the completed songs, to later hearing these songs shared across communities. Now that she and Alan have more time to spend in community, Lucy plans to sit with people and learn more about their arts and the spiritual undertones: I want to encourage and pray for believers as they seek God’s direction for their arts. I also want to document the development of Christian Indigenous dance and variations within language groups. Looking back on the past 35 years, Lucy says she loves the space, freedom and remoteness of being in community: The motto here is ‘go with the flow’. You cannot rush anything. Relationships are more important than time-oriented goals. It took time to develop but it is very special to be part of our Garrwa family and clan system and really feel like we belong. Please pray for Lucy and Alan as they: record and edit teaching on Genesis in 14 different languages for Nungalinya College help create five Kriol rap songs support others in recording teach Nungalinya music students basic audio recording and editing skills. Reproduced with permission from Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia

Why were Barnabas and Paul mistaken for gods in Lystra? "When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker." - Acts 14:11-12 Lystra was a town on the route between Syrian Antioch and Ephesus. Like many cities in that region, Greek influence was strong, and the people worshipped the Greek gods. It seems that those who witnessed the healing by Paul and Barnabas did not grasp that the gospel being preached was of a different religion, perhaps because they could not understand the language used (Greek) well. The Bible records that they spoke in the Lycaonian language. Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was often portrayed as a large bearded man. Hermes, his messenger, usually appeared as younger and smaller-sized. Perhaps the fact that the Lycaonians identified Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes may indicate something about their appearances! Also, as Paul was the main speaker, he was performing Hermes’ role as messenger of Zeus.