UofN Jeju attended AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible launch

By Joshua K. Kim/ Editor

September 15 and 16, Christian missions organizations and institutional leaders from more than 34 countries gathered at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. and launched A.D. 2020 Global Year of the Bible. 

World Evangelism Alliance (WEA), Youth With A Mission, American Bible Society, Call2All and other mission agencies and organizations joined in AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible, and more than 500 leaders in more than 200 countries also endorsed the movement. Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission, also attended the meeting along with David Cole, the chairman of the University of the Nations, and Chang-Hoon Lee, the president of the University of the Nations, Jeju, South Korea, and discussed future cooperation plans with the attending leaders.

The AD 2020 Global Year of Bible is not an organization, but it is a relationship-based network of international missions and Christian organizations. This movement recognizes and commemorates the authority of the Bible, which has been around for thousands of years, promotes Bible education for people to read, listen, understand, and apply the Bible to their own lives, and encourages Christians to bring the Bible to their neighbors and to other cultures.

The AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible movement will work in unity with six goals. To pray, translate, publish, distribute, educate, and motivate people to participate in God’s Word.

First, the AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible is aiming to translate Bibles with translation ministries such as Wycliff, with the goal that 95% of the approximately 7,000 languages ​​on earth would have Bible in their native language by 2033. It also aims to ensure that 4% of the remaining 5% have at least New Testament, and the remaining 1% have at least one bible, more than 25 chapters in their language. 

On the other hand, publishing and distributing the translated Bible in various forms for the generations and ages is another ministry goal. All organizations work together so that any language, region, or generation can receive the word of God in their own words. For instance, Youth With A Mission has already been carrying out a Bible distribution movement called End of Bible Poverty for years, and it is expected to be escalated by AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible movement.

Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM, is praying for representatives of Mongolia (Video: University of the Nations, Jeju)

In addition, it decided to encourage and strengthen Bible education so that people can read, hear, understand, and apply the Bible to their lives. In fact, as important as witnessing the Gospel in the mission field, the importance of discipleship and Bible education to produce local leaders has been recognized increasingly. Each leader agreed to mobilize all the resources that they have and to promote Bible education programs more actively.

Finally, the AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible aims to motivate and emphasize all Christians to unite with the Word of God. In this generation, without acknowledging the authority of the Word of God and thirsty for absolute truth, we expect the revival to happen when Christians first become obsessed with the Word. In order to do this, large prayer gatherings are being planned around the world. In this sense, the AD 2020 Global Year of the Bible is an international Bible restoration, translation, distribution, and education movement.

In an interview with Christian Post, Lloyd Estrada, global advocate for Bible engagement with the World Evangelical Alliance, said, “Many of us have envisioned A.D. 2020 Global Year of the Bible as a catalyst for perhaps a second Reformation that is centered around the word of God united by the grace, the power and the wisdom of God. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can make this happen.  

According to Mark Anderson, Call2All president, such as the National Year of the Bible was declared by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983, however, there has never been an initiative like this held on a global scale.

Finally, the participants who attended the AD 2020 Global Year of Bible read the following article and proclaimed the launch of the movement.

TOGETHER WE RECOGNIZE THAT:

Many people are living with Bible poverty, for they do not have meaningful access to God’s Word. The Scriptures lament those seasons and situations whenever “the word of the LORD was rare” (1 Samuel 3:1 NIV). This describes the current reality of many millions who can’t engage with God’s word because of linguistic, educational, economic, religious and/or socio-political barriers. Therefore, many exist “separate from Christ, excluded from … the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12 NIV).

God’s heart is that of a good shepherd who cares for the least, the last and the lost. He is willing to expend great effort to “go out to search for the one that is lost” (Matthew 18:12 NLT). We know that in this we are to “be imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1 NASB) and “should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21 NRSV) “in complete obedience to God’s will (Colossians 4:12 GNB).

We are called to go everywhere we are not until all persons in every situation are able to have meaningful access to God’s Word, for God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4 NRSV).

We are to encourage all to engage with God’s Word in a life-transforming way. We aspire that all become like the Bereans who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11 NASB). For this reason the Bible exhorts everyone to “give your time and effort to the public reading of the Scriptures” (1 Timothy 4:13 GNB), for anyone who looks steadily at the perfect law of freedom and keeps to it – not listening and forgetting, but putting it into practice – will be blessed in every undertaking” (James 1:23 NJB).