When the Translators Wept

On December 14, 2022, translators for Wycliffe Bible Translators gathered in a conference room in Orlando, Florida, for what they expected to be a routine technology demo. Engineers showed them a new AI-assisted tool that could draft Scripture translations in languages so remote that only a handful of linguists had ever attempted them. When the system produced a draft of John 3:16 in Mixtec — a language one translator had spent eleven years working on — she broke down sobbing. Within minutes, others were weeping too. The tool wasn't replacing them. It was multiplying them. Work that had taken decades might now take months. The gospel could reach languages they'd assumed they would never live to see translated.

That morning in Orlando echoes what happened in Jerusalem two thousand years earlier. When the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, the miracle wasn't just noise and fire. It was communication. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia — each heard the mighty works of God in their own tongue. The Spirit shattered every barrier that kept people from hearing the gospel.

Peter stood up and declared it was exactly what the prophet Joel had promised: God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Not on one tribe. Not in one language. On all flesh.

The Almighty has always been in the business of breaking through walls we assume are permanent — so that no one is left without a witness.