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The people in Sima’s tiny village on the side of the mountain in South Asia work hard to provide for themselves, and for each other. They are a small community that lives on little. As a Bible translator in her spare time, Sima makes the 2-hour trek through the jungle with her baby and her laptop to reach a small town that has an internet café. There, she has just enough bandwidth to send a text with updates.Sima knows something that few in her village know: that God is going to meet them through His Word. What she may not...

John Wycliffe has been called “The Morning Star of the Reformation.” The morning star is not actually a star, but the planet Venus, which appears before the sun rises and while darkness still dominates the horizon. The morning star is unmistakably visible. Darkness dominated the horizon in the fourteenth century, the century of Wycliffe, who was born in 1330 and died in 1384, almost exactly one hundred years before Luther was born. By his teenage years, Wycliffe was at Oxford. Thomas Bradwardine (known as “Doctor Profundus”) taught theology and William of Ockham (famous for “Ockham’s Razor”) taught philosophy. Before long,...

Tuesday marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. While Martin Luther deserves special recognition on this Reformation Day, the Protestant Reformation involved many more great pastors and thinkers. It would be unfair to them to focus all attention on Luther. Below is PJ Media's list of ten lesser-known but vitally important Reformation figures. There are hundreds of men and women who led the charge to return to a Bible-based Christianity following the five "Solas" (Sola Fide or Faith Alone, Sola Scriptura or the Bible Alone, Sola...

The murders of four translators working to bring the Bible to obscure languages in the Middle East earlier this month won't stop the charity behind the effort from its work, officials said. The four unidentified translators, who worked secretly for Wycliffe Associates, a Florida non-profit dedicated to bringing the gospel to hundreds of obscure languages, were killed by suspected Islamist militants at an undisclosed location,Wycliffe officials said in a statement. “They shot and destroyed all the equipment in the office,” read the statement. “The invaders burned all the books and other translation materials in the office." The work is so...

The condemnation took place on July 6, 1415, in the presence of the solemn assembly of the council in the cathedral. After the performance of high mass and liturgy, Hus was led into the church. The bishop of Lodi delivered an oration on the duty of eradicating heresy; then some theses of Hus and Wycliffe and a report of his trial were read. He protested loudly several times, and when his appeal to Christ was rejected as a condemnable heresy, he exclaimed, "O God and Lord, now the council condemns even thine own act and thine own law as heresy,...

If Christian broadcaster Stendal goes on trial in Colombia, missions work nationwide may be at risk. Is Russ Stendal, the famed missionary to FARC terrorists in South America, actually El Gringo, a terrorist leader seeking the overthrow of Colombia’s government? That question is before a three-judge panel, based on allegations from Carlos Manuel Silva, chief sectional prosecutor for the Colombian department of Cundinamarca, which includes the capital, Bogota. Stendal denies any allegation of leadership in FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). He said in a recent Facebook video, “Somebody set a trap for me, and I walked into it. They...

An estimated 5.8 billion people now have all or some of the Holy Bible translated into their first language, and the Bible is now in more than 2,800 different languages, according to a recent announcement by Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. "Last year, Wycliffe Global Alliance reported that 4.9 billion people could access at least part of the Bible in their first language. This year the number has grown to 5.8 billion," Bob Creson, president and CEO of Wycliffe, told The Christian Post. "This represents tremendous progress toward our goal of starting a translation project in every language needing one by...

International groups and mission organizations, including Bible translation teams working in the Central African Republic, are fleeing the troubled nation as escalating fighting threatens expatriate staff. Wycliffe Associates decided to evacuate its foreign workers this month after fighters looted and pillaged its team’s work. Violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) escalated Sept.8 as clashes between the current president’s forces and alleged supporters of ousted President Francois Bozize killed nearly 100 people.
 Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian organization, reported that fighting continued on Sept. 9, in the village of Bouca, 62 miles from Bossangoa. The Associated Press reported that 60...

Following criticism from many quarters and official rebuke from the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Wycliffe Bible Translators and its primary implementing partner, SIL International, issued new guidelines in August saying familial language for God should normally be maintained in the text of Bible translations. SIL convened an August meeting in Istanbul for translators and consultants to set standards. They then released a best practices statement that reaffirms belief in the eternal deity of Jesus Christ and says, "Scripture translations should promote understanding of the term 'Son of God' in all its richness, including his filial relationship with the Father,...

The world’s largest Bible translation organization has already raised nearly $250 million, or one-fourth of its $1 billion goal, for the campaign to translate the Bible into every language by 2025. Even in the current economic tough times, supporters donated generously and helped the campaign make significant progress within two years, said Wycliffe’s president. The ten-year Last Languages Campaign has the ambitious goal of beginning Bible translation for all languages that still need the scriptures by 2025. “To raise nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in two years is impressive even in a booming economy. In the current climate,...

In a rocky job market, there is one field that has thousands of openings waiting to be filled. Wycliffe Bible Translators, the world’s largest organization of its kind, is looking for workers with a range of skills to assist in the translation of the scriptures into the last remaining languages. “Of course, a large number will go into translation,” said Chuck Michaels of Wycliffe to Mission Network News. “But for every translator team we send out we need three support personnel: people who are pilots, IT personnel, teachers that will teach missionary children, managers that will help us in our...

In the 14th Century, Oxford was the most outstanding university in the world, and John Wycliffe was its leading theologian and philosopher. The Black Death ( Bubonic Plague), which killed a third of the population of Europe, lead Wycliffe to search the Scriptures and find salvation in Christ. THE KING’S CHAMPION As a professor at Oxford University, Wycliffe represented England in a controversy with the Pope. Wycliffe championed the independence of England from Papal control. He supported King Edward III’s refusal to pay taxes to the Pope. (It was only one step away from denying the political supremacy of the...

The college head thinks 95% of us are going to burn in hell. His new deputy believes it’s wrong for women to teach men. Insiders are complaining about an “openly homophobic” atmosphere. A third of the academic staff have resigned. Others are unwilling to speak openly because they fear disciplinary action. Is this perhaps the notorious Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where rock music and cellphones are banned, where men must have short hair and where women can’t wear trousers to class? No. Welcome to the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Strictly speaking Wycliffe Hall is a permanent private...