Vernacular Audio Bibles

Fellowshipping with my friend David, we realized that the Audio Bible is not such a complicated thing to produce.

Did you know that the complete Bible on audio is about ninety hours long?

What does this tell us? That we really may not need as much time to produce it as we think.

I know some are thinking about quality, whatever they mean. But I want to let you know that quality comes about when there is already something being consumed and therefore some comparison.

Ever noticed when you are starved that you will realize that food is not as good after dealing with the biting hunger? To the hungry every bitter thing is sweet is not only scriptural but is the reality.

I produce materials for people in dire need of the same and can confirm this.

Sometimes I will produce in a language I am not conversant with and so can really not do anything to improve or even know its accuracy, especially in translation.

I would therefore send a sample and ask for comments. And I have never received any to date. I would be forced to produce without their input because it wouldn’t come. I would later learn that they produced copies and started using it. Looking for problems or inaccuracies was a waste of time for them.

That is what I think about Audio Bibles. We should produce them and work on improving when it is already available and being used and ministering.

Think of the person who can’t read for whatever reason. Would they care whether it is studio quality or has the right background sounds or has the perfect voice recorder and reader?

Let me tell you what we discussed. And it became a burden that I barely slept.

We have Bible reading marathons or something like that. There are churches and Bible societies who regularly sponsor them. I say this because they are even advertised on media.

Suppose we used such for recording instead of just reading?

We can even do it differently.

Suppose we broke the Bible into five portions and have five teams reading through their portion for a week? I actually think that three days would suffice for the reading.

We would need five computers with microphones (and mixers if possible, though not a essential for our purpose). We would need about twenty readers conversant with the vernacular we want to produce. This would give one time to read a portion and get some rest as others are reading through another.

We will need a spacious venue, probably a church with several rooms for each team to be reading from. They can even be accommodated in a retreat centre where interruptions will be at a minimum.

Take the ninety hours (we can make them a hundred for ease of computation and to take care of transitions and logistics).

The five teams have twenty hours each to record.

Since they are people who are zealous to make the Bible come alive to those who cannot access it otherwise, their commitment will not be in question.

Give them a day to bond and go through the training required. The next two days will be more than adequate to record the whole Bible. Then it will be taken to the editor to make it easy to navigate though each should leave with his own raw copy.

It is as the community is enjoying this that they will have the luxury of looking for the best voice and studio to improve on what is available, and not earlier. Otherwise all nations with a Bible ought to be having an Audio Bible.

Incidentally this is a burden I have had for a long time as I have ministered to people who cannot read especially as I know what difference the Bible makes on the one who can access it, starting with me.

But I was thinking of those long routes of a reader who has to take leave for months and buy equipment and rent space for that long to produce. Incidentally we had even identified a reader but he died before we had even approached him on this.

And I have wasted those years even as the need grows. All because I was thinking of a studio and person being engaged for months on end to read!

I believe I have overgrown that desire for ‘quality’ even as people are dying without being to hear the Bible in a language they can understand.

We have scanned two vernacular Bibles (Meru and Borana) and have them on PDF.

We converted to a different format to make them easy to make a mobile app but the errors were enormous. And none of us had adequate time to devote to the correcting of those errors. Anyone who can use such is welcome. The readers of those languages can use those soft copies to read at a font size most convenient for them.

But for now I am challenging believers to take the challenge of making Audio Bibles for our vernaculars.

Who will stand with me? When will we start?

God bless you.

Master’s Likeliness

It is very easy to know the kind of school one attended, especially when particular behavior patterns are observed.

And it is not much different when we look at the schools of thought one subscribes to.

One clear thing I have observed is that a disciple copies his discipler in more ways than the Bible verses he memorises and kind of company he keeps.

They will take the mannerisms and preferences of their master. They will take his thought patterns. They will eventually become clones of their master, to use a term most of us understand, though for the most part it is used negatively.

Why do people who have been married for a long time look like they are from the same parents? They have spent so much time together that from their miniscule gestures they start resembling.

What am I driving at?

We will automatically resemble the master we spend our time with. We will resemble the master we are constantly in communication with.

Christ said that we will be known by our fruit. And that fruit will be consistent with the kind of master we represent.

I therefore want us to look at a few traits of the One we call Master and some of the traits we display that may be a clear demonstration that we probably are serving another master.

Jesus performed His miracles outside the limelight. A case in point is in John 5 where the one He healed had no idea who had healed him. Many times He ordered those He healed not to tell anyone else about the healing. He hid when publicity became too much, even rebuking those who were following Him concerning their motives for searching or pursuing Him.

Why do we see displays of miracles on TV? Why do we call people through advertisements to come to be healed? Why do we invite people so that we can pray for them?

On the other side we know that the devil simply loves visibility. He feeds on the star status. He loves those displays and the attention he derives from them.

Christ never shone any light on His performance and ministry. He was content to be called a copier of what His Father was doing. He always pointed to His Father whether He was arguing with His detractors or teaching or performing miracles.

Why do we see church billboards that must have the names, and even pictures of the ‘man of God’, some even with their spouse? Why must crusades indicate the performers in their invitations and advertisements? Why must we know the performers before we attend a ‘worship’ concert or event?

Christ said that He did not come to be served (though He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords) but to serve and give His life a ransom for us.

Why then are pastors and other ministers the focal point of the resources available in the church? Why are they among the most highly paid class of persons in society? Why do most churches seem to revolve around their pastors? Why is it a greater sin to offend a pastor than to offend Christ?

Christ said that He had no place to lay His head (though we know that He created all things).

How comes that pastors are amassing wealth from all fronts? Why is buying a pastor this or the other toy (car, house, scholarship, holiday trip) such a priority in churches? Why are those more pressing needs than fighting poverty in the congregation? Why is it a more pressing need than missions?

Could we be feeding off another master’s trough? Could we be in fellowship with another master? Could we be subject to another king? Could we be serving another Christ?

Let us examine ourselves. Like Paul admonished let us examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith.

God bless you

Learning Grace from Lifts

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 22: 11 – 13)

For those without an experience with lifts, let me explain to get us on one page.

Assume you are intending to travel someplace and you do not have any means for the same. Then a friend with a car offers to take you there and back at no cost. That in simple terms is a lift though there are many variations to this.

Do you realize that you are held captive by this person who has given you that lift? You will go where he wants, eat what he offers, visit whoever he visits and reach according to his plans. In short you transfer all your plans to his fancies. He might even leave you to watch over his car as he goes to reconnect with family and friends.

Should a breakage occur, you will be the first to go and check what is wrong. You will change the wheel when there is a puncture. You will push when it gets stuck.

Let me even get to a very simple task. A matatu (public transport) gives you a lift, saving you twenty shillings (a quarter dollar).

Do you realize that nobody will remind you to stand when the vehicle gets full and a free seat is required? Again you will be the first to get out if something requiring an extra hand pops up. All for twenty bob! Yet the ones who have paid that little money will not even care to find out what is happening outside.

The one who offers the lift is the one who sets the rules. And he is not required to consult or even inform you of them.

That is what happened in this story Jesus gave. You realize that the qualified rejected the king’s offer. That is when he invited the rejects and the totally unqualified to his wedding party.

But it was the king’s party. He therefore was the one responsible for setting the rules.

Probably the character here thought he was dressed well enough to need the kings wedding uniform, if I may call it that. He may have thought that he was better than the layabouts who had been collected from the byways and trenches of the city that desperately needed to be made presentable.

He forgot that it was a lift he was enjoying. That is why he was punished for attending a wedding.

God calls us and offers salvation. How many now think that we receive it on our terms? How many preachers are so fluent on the fact that God requires nothing from us after saving us?

Could Jesus have talked about the strait road and door if salvation was as ‘free’ as these preachers are so fluent at teaching? Why did He not talk about the salvation highway?

Do verses like this make sense to these preachers?

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14)

Is claiming and grabbing and possessing all there is to our faith? Is the seed (whatever it is made to mean) all that God requires from His worshipers?

Does ‘go and sin no more’ mean anything to them?

God is the King, and the King of kings at that. It therefore means that everybody and everything is His subject, meaning that we are all completely subject to His rules.

Of course His rules are recorded in the scriptures. And they are the standards we are expected to abide by.

We are not the ones who have invited ourselves to the party (salvation). It means that we really have no business deciding how to live there.

In fact, even our preferences have no business there.

We have been offered a lift to heaven if I may call it that. We must go there according to the ne who has offered us that lift.

Abiding by different rules automatically means that we really are not on that lift and that if we are we will be banished like the smart invitee in our parable.

How are you walking in that lift?

Let me give an example.

I am involved in the writing ministry.

Among the things it involves is walking with new and unpublished writers to have their message in print as booklets, books or magazines. And I am brought very many of these.

The first thing many ask me is how much I will charge for my services (editing, layout, etc.). of course I do not charge for ministry. And that single fact has helped me through numerous challenges, the first being that God can order me out of a project. The second being that I can offer unflattering criticism as God leads without fearing.

There have been instances of headstrong writers insisting mainly on personal opinion against scripture (I am sure you know of the strain and flow of revelations nowadays). They then insist the same must be part of the publication.

I will simply pull out of the project.

Now suppose I was paid?

The reason I can be loyal to God is that I am not on any writer’s payroll. I am not enjoying any lifts in this ministry God has entrusted to me and so can comfortably turn down any offer that does not agree with revelation.

I have pulled out of a magazine I was part of because the managing editor doctored my article without consulting me yet I was in the editorial team. It would have been a disaster had I been being paid.

God sets the rules, all of them, when He offers grace.

It is deception to think that we can live as we will when we are still talking about grace. We are completely deluded when we speak grace with the same mouth we speak self-fulfillment and will.

It is a lift we are enjoying.

Key Holders

Then thus came every maiden unto the king; whatsoever she desired was given her to go with her out of the house of the women unto the king's house. Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go in unto the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king's chamberlain, the keeper of the women, appointed. And Esther obtained favour in the sight of all them that looked upon her. (Esther 2: 13, 15)

Grace is very interesting.

We are always shouting that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

Though that is scriptural, we many times seem to imply that it is cursed to receive.

I want us today to look at the grace of receiving, especially as a blessing. And it is because the grace of receiving is in itself a giving, a giving sometimes higher than that of actual giving.

You see, many give of their excess. Remember Jesus and the widow’s mite? It therefore means they do not feel much loss from their giving.

And some give of their waste. I have seen some things given in churches to minister to the poor and wondered how a sober and sane person can give tattered and worthless clothes to minister to those without.

Anyway, back to our topic.

I want us to look at Esther.

Did she aspire to be a queen? We are not told. But it is possible she was forced into the king’s court as her faith would not have allowed her to play the whore as a qualification for becoming a queen.

But nobody negotiates with a king as he owns everybody and everything in his kingdom. Incidentally it also applies to Christ.

She is therefore taken to the palace. And that is where we see her grace shining.

What was it? She was surrendered to God who had allowed her to be taken to that test, if I may call it so.

Being taken to the palace gave her a status, a major one. Imagine she had seven maidens at her beck and call!

She shines out because she releases them to serve her. She became what many leaders want to be known as yet are rarely able to become; a servant leader. She allowed them to serve her by serving their service.

Look at it this way. You are a potential queen being prepared for the same and these are your servants to make you queen material.

Let us go to our verse to get it very clearly.

When a girl’s day came to meet the king, she was given a blank check to make herself as marketable (presentable) to the king as possible. She wore what she chose, slayed as much as she could so that the king could remember her name later as that was her passport to being queen.

Now imagine yourself at that point.

I am sure that the pressure was worse for Esther as failing would have reduced her to a whore according to her faith. Sex with the king without marriage to him automatically made her a whore. Worse still is that she would then be reduced to one professionally as she would be compelled to join his harem.

What does she do when she faced such a daunting task?

She surrenders to her handlers.

She actually told them to choose her future for her. She surrenders control completely.

Now imagine you were that team. How would you have felt?

That is empowerment at its best. Someone has just placed her whole life and future in your hands.

And that is how she won.

You see, the other maidens did not know the king. Esther’s team knew the king intricately.

The other maidens who used their authority beautified themselves according to their fancies. They used their expertise to approach the king. They used their experience. They used their training.

In surrendering her privilege, Esther automatically transferred herself to the king’s court.

You see, her team (incidentally, all the maidens’ teams) knew the king and his court. And Esther had given them the chance to shine. She had returned her blank check and told them to cash it.

With that she became unbeatable and unforgettable to the king.

They knew the king’s colors. They knew the king’s pleasures. They knew the ornaments the king loved. They knew the sandals the king approved. They knew the scents that moved him.

And Esther was now their project. She had stopped being their job. Her failure could have cut them deep almost to the point of devastation. Pressure on them would have been less had they been the ones going to the king.

They therefore did their job in such a way that there could be no room for failure. And it was impossible for such a team to fail.

By choosing to give by receiving, she was able to get authority. She shone by giving others the power to shine. She chose to receive instead of giving orders.

I doubt Esther was the most beautiful of the virgins. She was a normal Jewess and I doubt she stood out otherwise everybody could have known her people long before she was dragged into that court.

But she stood out because she allowed other people’s involvement to stand out.

Now imagine with me the girls presenting themselves to the king. And here we are talking about one chance in a lifetime. You miss it and you miss out.

One comes exquisitely dressed as she came from a family with class. The king can barely take his eyes off her. He thinks that finally the chase is over. But then her perfume! Not only can’t he endure it; but he is allergic to it and starts sneezing the longer he stays with her.

The other comes all decked up with pearls as she really wants to impress. But how can the king be impressed with his own pearls?

Another comes really sensuously dressed as in her mind the king was just looking for a sex toy.

Another comes dressed nicely but her colors depress the king.

On and on and on they came, each with her peculiarity.

Again assume our girl was number thirty something. We know the girls were taken from all over the kingdom consisting of 170 provinces.

Her team knows the king completely. They know his phobias and pleasant reminisces. They know his allergies. They know his colors.

They therefore dress Esther with a simplicity that is complex as it took into consideration what the king loved and hated; what memories were pleasant or painful and what colors he loved seeing.

They then applied a perfume that was almost impossible to smell, but one that gave the king pleasant reminisces of the best times in his mother’s bosom, flooding his mind with a feeling of security that he had not felt for a long time.

When she leaves in the morning the king realizes that he can never take his mind off her. She was like someone he had known all his life, someone he could not afford to let go.

And it was the same for days.

He calls for another girl and can barely see her as his mind is still transfixed on Esther. He then realized that it would be Esther or nobody else.

That, I believe is how Esther became queen.

All because she gave the gift of receiving!

I am sure that a further reason for their passion in helping Esther was the realization that her getting the position could have made their work easier and even better from their interaction with her in those preparation rooms. That is why everybody loved her.

How many of us give others a chance to shine by ministering to us? How many do not mind others taking glory on their behalf?