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A language survey in Tanzania once produced a startling result: villagers said they understood one style Bible translation clearly but preferred a different style they could barely follow, because they had come to believe Scripture was never meant to be understood at all. That moment sits at the center of this conversation with Dr. George Payton, head of the Bible and Translation department at Dallas International University, as he and host Dr. Timothy Hatcher trace how theologies of incomprehensibility have surfaced across centuries and cultures, from Latin liturgy in the Middle Ages to modern languages of wider communication.
Dr. Payton draws on more than two decades of field experience in Kenya and Tanzania, including the Orma Translation Project among an unreached people group, along with twenty-five years of translation consulting and training across East Africa. He shares field stories on footnotes as Scripture Engagement tools that pastors actively request, a Romans translation workshop in Uganda that reshaped how local pastors preached on grace and works, and the surprising role mother tongue translation played in healing decades of denominational division within a single Tanzanian language community.
The conversation also explores how worship music, ethnoarts, and blended language Bible studies help multilingual congregations engage Scripture more deeply, and why Dallas International University is now working to integrate linguistics, translation, Scripture Engagement, and the arts into a single training approach rather than treating them as separate disciplines.
In This Episode, You'll Discover:- Why a Tanzanian language community said they preferred a Bible translation they admitted they could not understand, and what that reveals about inherited theologies of incomprehensibility
- How the Septuagint's origin as a translation for understanding shaped New Testament quotation patterns and offers a biblical case for prioritizing comprehension
- Why pastors in southern Tanzania specifically requested footnotes in their new translations and how those footnotes strengthened their preaching authority
- The story of a Romans translation workshop in Entebbe, Uganda, where local pastors realized their teaching on salvation and works needed to change once the text was clear
- How Scripture verses and objects can take on talisman like functions in some cultures, and why that matters for translation and Scripture Engagement strategy
- Why church leaders often cite unity as a reason to avoid mother tongue translation, and a counterexample where vernacular Scripture healed longstanding denominational division
- Barbara Grimes' framework of a language for fellowship and a language for discipleship as a practical model for multilingual congregations
- How worship music, ethnoarts, and blended language Bible studies function as Scripture Engagement tools that cross linguistic and cultural barriers
- Why Dallas International University is working to integrate linguistics, translation, Scripture Engagement, and the arts into one unified training approach
Dr. George Payton is head of the Bible and Translation department at Dallas International University, where he developed the MA in Translation Advising, the Graduate Certificate in Translation Consulting, and a new condensed Certificate in Bible Translation. He spent twenty years in Kenya leading the Orma Translation Project, an unreached people group translation effort that began with Bible stories from Genesis and grew into a full translation of that book. He went on to serve twenty five years across East Africa as a translation consultant, training national translators, expatriate advisors, and translation consultants. He later taught in Biola University's linguistics and missions program before joining Dallas International University in 2020. Dr. Payton holds graduate training from Fuller Seminary, where he studied under Paul Hiebert, Charles Kraft, Peter Wagner, and Dudley Woodbury.
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