Linguist Glenn Kerr: MM Guest Contributor
January 28, 2010 – 6:41 pmIn an effort to provide greater diversity to the Missions Mandate Blog, translation consultant Glenn Kerr will provide missions articles as a guest contributor.
Glenn is uniquely gifted as a linguist, professor, student of the Word, and husband to his lovely wife Becky. As his summary below reveals, Glenn has traveled extensively in an effort to aid in the accurate translation of God’s Word into the “mother tongue” of various people groups.
Glenn’s articles are drawn from his years of experience as a language consultant and teacher. He draws from unique experiences in northern India, the central African country of Chad, and 32 other countries to which he has traveled on translation assignments.
In the midst of all of his translation work from his Grand Rapids, MI office and abroad, he invests in the lives of rising linguists and gospel ministers on college campuses. It was on one of these college campuses where I first met Glenn. Linguistics 101: the hardest, yet most rewarding block class of my undergrad studies. (Sorry Dr. Smallman [another missiologist]. Your Cross-Cultural Communication class was a close second!)
What I respect most about Glenn is not his firm grasp of the biblical languages, or his passion to stir young people to give themselves to Bible translation, or the fact that he can spend his morning devotion time in his Greek/Hebrew Bible (and actually commune with God through it!). These are all true.
But what I most appreciate about Glenn is his humble, tender heart before God. Often in class he was moved to tears retelling the story of a national brother reading from God’s Word for the first time in his own language. Glenn’s eyes lit up when he talked about all of the resources that the English-speaking church has at her disposal and the great stewardship that God has given us.
I trust that Glenn’s articles will open your eyes to the world of Bible translation and its place in the fulfillment of the Great Commission through church planting movements. And I pray that you will consider what role God would have you and your church play in the crucial task of giving the Word to the heart language of the peoples of the earth.
-Tim Aynes
Director, MM
Glenn J. Kerr is chief translation consultant for Bibles International, the Bible Society of Baptist Mid-Missions. He has worked as a consultant for 15 years, being involved with translation projects on five continents and about 28 languages.
He has a master’s degree in Hebrew and Semitic Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has done graduate studies in linguistics at Michigan State University, and is currently in doctoral studies through the University of South Africa.
He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Bible translation and related linguistic subjects on an adjunct basis at three Bible colleges and universities in the US as well as his consulting work overseas.
