LEARN ABOUT
PEOPLES
The first thing
you probably noticed is that word “peoples” is an odd sort of plural. That’s
because we are not talking about many
individuals. Rather, we’re talking
about many groups of individuals. In scripture
they are referred to as “nations.” This is important in missions, because God
wants his message of salvation to go to all peoples. In the book of Revelation,
we read “your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language
and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).
DEFINITION OF A PEOPLE GROUP
Here is a
formal definition of a people group from the Lausanne Committee for World
Evangelization. “A People
Group is a significantly large sociological grouping of individuals
who perceive themselves to have a common affinity with one another.” But how
does this affect missions? It continues, “For evangelization purposes, a people
group is the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church
planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or
acceptance.”
"US" AND "THEM"
Those who
belong to a people group talk in terms of “us” and “them.” They use words such
as “foreigners” or “outsiders” and in some instances they may make ethnic jokes
about other peoples. Their common affinity is based on factors such as
language, religion, ethnicity, culture, and residence. One of the strongest
factors is language. But this is where things get a little complicated. We
looked at languages in Session #1 and found that there are thousands of them.
Well, there are even more peoples. In many cases the members of a people group
all speak the same language. But there are also peoples who speak more than one
language, and languages that are spoken by more than one people. Experts have
estimated over 16,500 people groups worldwide. Who said this was going to be
easy?
THE WORD "NATIONS" IN THE BIBLEWhen we read the word “nations” in the Bible, we naturally think of countries. After all, the United Nations is composed of over two hundred countries. But the Greek word translated as “nations” is closer to “ethnic groups” or “people groups.” So, when used in that sense, one country may be composed of many nations. We may send missionaries to one country, but that does not guarantee that they will reach all nations in that country.
AN EXAMPLE
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| NIGERIA - Political Boundary |
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| NIGERIA - People Groups |
The country of
Nigeria in West Africa is a good example of the need for individually targeting
each people with the gospel message. There are over 500 people groups (or
“nations”) in that country and about the same number of languages. However,
many of the languages have dialects that range from sounding almost identical
to being 80 percent intelligible with the main language. A field technician
made some audio recordings of the gospel message in a local village. He then
played them to a people living 20 miles away. They understood every word, but
rejected it because the speaker was not from their group. They wanted a program
of their own. Notice again that the definition of a people group refers to
“barriers of understanding or acceptance.”
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge
is therefore to present the gospel message in a language each people can
understand and a way that is acceptable to their culture, without changing the
intent and meaning of the scripture.
DIG DEEPER!
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