An unreached minority?
September 10, 2009
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We had a Vision Day yesterday at Wycliffe, led by the UK Director, Eddie Arthur. One thing in particular which Eddie said struck me forcibly. When Jesus saw how harassed and helpless were the people coming to him, he said to his disciples,
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:37–38)
What was the world population in Jesus’ day? Apparently about 100 million. How many people today do not have access to the Scriptures in a language they understand well? 200 million! Enough said. See the full statistics on our Wycliffe page (click the tab above).
Stats are messy things. 200 million is not an insignificant number (see http://brassingtons.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/not-insignificant/ ) but far more people lack access. The 200 million refers to the people for whom work hasn’t even started . The stats say there are 1.2 billion for whom there is work in progress. In progress means not finished. In some languages there may be a few verses, or a book or two available perhaps to a growing but limited number of people. I’m not sure whether that includes those who have the whole NT available.