Preaching Non-Stop & Translating the Malay Bible

Last Sunday was supposed to my break from preaching but last minute some church leaders caught the news that I was coming up to Ranau and they invited me to preach in my former church. I had many fond memories there not least averaging two sermons a week making it 100 sermons within the year of 2015. Yes, it was 10 years ago and I had turned 50 and now I am a decade older. But in my spirit I am in the pink of spiritual health.

Despite many challenges I preach with an unction on high and the enemy trembled before God’s servants who are anointed. Those who are not anointed will bore the people to sleep, spiritual slumber and even the devil is not worried and they are left alone without authority and without power for the kingdom of God is not of talk but of power. 

Tomorrow I shall be preaching on the theme the mystery of faith according to 1 Timothy 3:9 and the mystery of godliness in 3:16. I shall be speaking about character formation through hardships but it is not without hope for the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us (Rom 5:1-5)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is about the love of God revealed to us when God sent His only begotten Son to die on our behalf. He loved us before we even know Him as we are known by God. Preaching in Malay is quite tricky sometimes as it is not my first language but a good second language. 

If I struggle to find words I will use English and translate into Malay the best I can. But I think in Malay now whenever I want to and it comes out naturally until someone from an English speaking asked me “pst how did you become or what actions you took to become so fluent in Malay?” She had an experience of her life attending an indigenous church that uses Malay. 

Even as for the Malay bibles that I use I have been contemplating that there are three major requirements of a good Bible translator of a Malay bible - biblical languages, Malay (I have been using it for preaching since 1988 and at home since 1989 and thirdly, a theologian as he needs to know the whole breath of Scripture to translate any part as a part of the whole and the whole consisting of many parts.