Learning Requires Teachers
Acts 8:26-40 tells the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch – an official in the queen’s court, head of the treasury, who visited Jerusalem to worship. The Holy Spirit sent Philip to meet him. Actually, the instructions were, “go that way” followed by “join that chariot.”
The man was riding along reading scripture. He understood the writing, the language, the words — but he didn’t understand the context and content of the passage. “How can I [understand] unless someone explains it to me?”, he asked. Philip explained it as he had learned from his teacher, Jesus, and another soul joined God’s family that day.
Now… if the queen’s trusted head of the treasury, a man able to read the text, asked for help understanding the passage… how much more a child who is just learning to read (maybe) and may not even have a grip on the idea that thoughts can be communicated through language? Without exposure to a language they can sample, reproduce, and manipulate, they don’t know that it can be done.
It is easy for adults to take for granted the language they don’t remember learning. Or, for many of us to take for granted the foundational stories and principles learned in our childhood. We must remember that learning requires teachers – it did for us, it does for them.
In Romans, the case is presented this way:
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? – Rom 10:14-15
We celebrate alongside others in the completion of scripture translations – written, signed, story-by-story, and verse-by-verse – in so many languages around the world. There are so many more, especially among the Deaf — the ASLV Bible is the only verse-by-verse signed bible in existence at this time, and it took 38 years to complete it. Ministry partners are diligently working to get more scripture translated, either in Chronological Bible Translation (story by story) or in sign language versions (verse by verse). Ministry partners are also working to train Deaf leaders to be the teachers in their communities around the world. We bless them, pray for them, and sincerely desire that their work continue until scripture is available to all. But there’s another group easily overlooked… Deaf children, most of them born to hearing households. That’s our mission field.
At Silent Blessings, our objective is to develop resources that are child-appropriate, visually oriented, and teach the meanings of verses like Joel 2:32, quoted in Acts 10:13… “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” We are dedicated to the idea that “Everyone” includes Deaf Children.