China (MNN) — 36 people arrested in a raid on a Bible school run by an underground Protestant church in China have been released. They were arrested in a crackdown on Christians worshipping outside Communist Party control. The 10,000 copies of confiscated illegal Christian literature were not returned.
This crackdown isn’t keeping World Bible Translation Center from making a concerted effort to get more Bibles into China.
While China prints Bibles, they’re just not printing enough of them. Christians in China crave God’s Word. That’s why the World Bible Translation Center is printing their Easy to Read Translation.
World Bible’s Gary Bishop describes the need. “China remains the place in the world where there are more believers and seekers that have never even seen, nor held, nor read a Bible, than in anywhere else in the world.”
According to Bishop they’re planning to distribute 300,000 Bibles this year. While there is a legal Bible printer in China, it’s not very effective. “Most people cannot really read the Union Edition, which was translated a century ago now, and understand. So, we’re getting them the Easy to Read Bible.”
The other issue is demand. Bishop says there are about 100 million Christians in China today. “If you go back and look at all the Bibles that have been printed both inside China and smuggled into China and distributed in any form, the very best estimates are that maybe 60 million people could have at some point in time had a Bible.”
While 300,000 Bibles won’t meet the entire need, it will help. Bishop says they need to raise $1.2 million, or $4 per Bible. “That includes all the preparation it takes to print one, the actual printing and the distribution of them.”
World Bible Translation uses three different ways to distribute the Bibles. One of the ways is through the autonomous regions of China, says Bishop. “Those are zones that are part of the Peoples Republic of China, but they’re locally governed. Because of that, there’s an openness and a more liberal approach to what we’re hoping to do.”
If you’d like to help World Bible Translation Center in this Bible distribution effort, click on the links.
