Iran (MNN) — Typically, when Iran appears in the headlines, it’s connected to nuclear ambitions or tensions with the U.S. Meanwhile, there’s a spiritual movement underway in the Persian nation.
“It’s a massive movement to Christ throughout the country and through the diaspora that’s scattered in Turkey, Armenia, and other neighboring countries in Europe,” David Reeves, CEO of unfoldingWord, says.
“There’s a large number of unreached people groups in the midst of that [movement]; languages that have no Scripture translation.”
Speaking hope to Iran
Iran’s official language is Farsi, but people use 80 other languages throughout the country as well. See a list of Iran’s languages here. unfoldingWord is teaming up with like-minded ministries and Iranian believers to get God’s Word into these minority languages. It’s part of a larger project called Whole Bibles for the Whole Nation, Reeves explains.
(Photo by Amir Ahmadi on Unsplash)
“When it’s done, there’ll be no language [speaker] left in Iran that wants a Bible that will not have a whole Bible in their language.”
These translations will fuel other Kingdom-building initiatives, he adds. “When you start getting into these minority language communities, they need scriptures in order to be effective in discipleship and church planting,” Reeves explains.
“Because we’re working on a model called church-centric Bible translation, we’re able to mobilize these large-scale church planting networks at scales that dwarf efforts that have been done in the past.”
Learn more about unfoldingWord’s approach here.
How to help
Making Christ known in Iran is a collaborative effort. unfoldingWord partners with 222 Ministries and Biblica to update the existing Farsi translation and begin new Bible translation work in minority languages.
“This church network has already got three languages with a team formed, ready to start Bible translation, and working on a fourth. So, it’ll easily be 10 [translations] that will start here in the next year,” Reeves says.
Become a financial partner here. Most importantly, pray. “Radical Islam has tentacles all over the place, so there’ll be a lot of spiritual opposition,” Reeves says.
“Pray for covering [and] protection over these church planting networks in the midst of all this.”
Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Kiwihug via Unsplash.
