OMF Blog
27. The Bible
NK Blog - Wednesday 09 December 2009... The holy Scriptures... are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...
2 Timothy 3:15b, 16
Disciples of Jesus and seekers in North Korea need the Bible. When a North Korean official was asked if it was easy to get a Bible, he replied, “Of course. In our country, freedom of worship is guaranteed under the Constitution. More than 50,000 copies of the Bible have been printed in North Korea.” (41)
Actually, the Bible is available to very few North Koreans. Some Bibles are brought into North Korea from the South, but the translation commonly used in the South is more difficult for a Korean to understand than it is for an English speaker to understand the King James Version Bible. Bibles that can be understood by ordinary people in North Korea are desperately needed.
Just as the North Koreans need food for their bodies, so they need food for their souls.
A United Bible Societies report claimed that in 1984 a new translation of the Bible had been published in North Korea. One South Korean Bible translator obtained a copy and found that it was based on a “Korean Common Language Bible” that the South had published in 1977. A person in the North had adapted that translation to North Korean grammar, not their ideology. (42)
- Praise God that the Bible, including the North Korean revision published in 1984, is at least somewhat available in North Korea.
- Pray that the day will soon come when anyone in the North will be able to get a Bible in the language that he can understand.
- Pray that the Bible would become more available to disciples and seekers in the North.