by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Thanks to Bible translators who risk their lives for the work, Christians who live under Iran’s hostile Islamic regime are now able to read the New Testament in 12 more of their nation’s 62 languages, Christianity Today reports.
While the conditions facing Christians in Iran are dire and dangerous, the underground church is reported to be growing fast and now comprises an estimated one million believers: the need for Bible translations in the mother-tongue of new believers is increasingly necessary. “As the underground Church continues to grow in Muslim-majority Iran, Bible translators are putting their lives on the line to bring the Gospel into the local dialects so that their friends and neighbors can have access to the written word of God for the first time,” the Christian Post reported recently.
Working with Bible translation and discipleship organizations including unfolding Word and Transform Iran, Iranian Christians both in Iran and around the world are translating the Gospel into an increasing number of native languages. Requesting anonymity for security reasons, Yashgin, an Iranian exegete-in-training told Christianity Today: “Translating the Bible is God’s way not simply to save people but to return glory to humiliated minority peoples. No one cares for us more than our mother. God showed us he cares also, by speaking her language.”
Further confirming the need for new translations, a spokesman for unfolding Word, who requested anonymity for his safety, told the Christian Post: "There are 1.45 billion people in the world who speak about 5,500 languages that do not have the whole Bible in their heart languages.”
“The Church has expanded exponentially in the last 20 years. And what these folks have learned is that you can lead someone to Christ, but if they don't have a church, they don't survive on their own,” the spokesman for unfolding Word said.
Ruled by a paranoid, violent government since 1979, Iran ranks 9th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.