Tuesday Evening TBS Update
Trinitarian Bible Society Evening
at South Featherstone Gospel Hall
Speaker: Craig Dennison from the TBS
Brian stood to open the evening and, with a smile, said, “I wish there were more people here tonight, but we are fishers of men—and grabbing people off the street doesn’t always work, does it Craig? Not always, anyway.” That got a bit of a chuckle, and he continued, “Still, we do give you a warm welcome to our meeting tonight, and we give a special welcome to Craig, who’s been here before and with whom we’ve had good fellowship.”
He explained how the evening would unfold: “We’ll have a couple of hymns and a prayer, and then I’ll hand over to Craig for an update. He’ll be reporting on the work of the Trinitarian Bible Society, and also passing on a word to us from the Scriptures.”
With a grin, he added, “Don’t forget the bookstall! When we’ve finished, feel free to browse and take anything you'd like—but please do pay for it. It’s all good stuff.”
Brian then turned our attention to the first hymn of the evening. “We’ll begin with one of my favourite hymns—number 559: To God Be the Glory. I love this hymn and I love the person who wrote it, Fanny Crosby. I didn’t know her, of course, but she was blind—and yet she wrote, ‘I’m seeing things.’ Just amazing. You didn’t need to see physically to know spiritual truth.”
With that, the room rose to sing.
Shaun’s Opening Prayer
After the hymn, Shaun stepped forward and invited everyone to bow their heads.
“Father, we thank you for those gathered here this evening to hear Craig bring a message,” he began. “We ask for your blessing not only on each person in this room, but a special blessing upon Craig. We pray that the words he delivers tonight will be words of wisdom—uplifting, and full of praise for Your name.”
He continued, “We also thank you, Lord, for the ongoing work of the Trinitarian Bible Society—particularly their efforts in translating the gospel into people’s native tongues so that Your truth can be understood deeply and clearly.”
He closed the prayer in Jesus’ name. A last hymn was sung before the meeting was handed over to Craig.
Craig’s Update from the Trinitarian Bible Society
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He didn’t jump straight into reports or statistics, though. Instead, he opened the Bible and read from Isaiah 52:13 to 53:3:
"Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, And his form more than the sons of men: So shall he sprinkle many nations; The kings shall shut their mouths at him: For that which had not been told them shall they see; And that which they had not heard shall they consider. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 52:13-53:3, KJV 1900)
Craig then offered a short reflection. “May the Lord bless the reading of His Word,” he said reverently, before honing in on verse 15: ‘So shall He sprinkle many nations.’
“That’s our motto as a society—‘The Word of God Among All Nations.’ Some say it’s overly ambitious. Some say it’s unbiblical. But we find our answer here in Isaiah. The word ‘sprinkle’ held deep meaning for the Jews of Isaiah’s time—ritual cleansing, holiness, covenant. But Isaiah says He—Christ—will sprinkle many nations. That’s a picture of the Gentiles being brought into God’s salvation plan. That’s why we do what we do.”
Craig spoke with a mixture of seriousness and joy as he explained that the church—not angels, not parachurch organisations—has been entrusted with the Word. “We are the seed sowers,” he said. “And if the Word is not sown, there is no harvest. The message must go out.”
He shared a powerful story from the mountains of northern Pakistan, where a people group called the Hindko had received a translation of the Bible—only to discover that references to “Father” and “Son of God” had been removed by the translators to avoid offending Muslims. “They were devastated,” Craig said. “How can you share the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Son of God if your Bible doesn’t say He is?”
Sadly, this wasn’t a one-off. Craig listed other regions—Arabic, Bengali, Indonesian translations—where similar things were happening. He didn’t hide his frustration, especially when it came to English versions. “We’ve seen this kind of theological downgrade happening since 1881. Take 1 John 5:7, for example—it’s been erased from most modern translations. And what’s missing? A clear reference to the Trinity.”
“Does it matter to God,” he asked, “if we take out the words Son or Father? I believe it does.”
He then spoke with clarity and passion about the Bible Society’s philosophy: that Scripture is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. “We’re not here to make the Bible palatable—we’re here to publish it faithfully.”
Then came the numbers. “We’ve now got 92 translation projects underway,” Craig shared. “Just six years ago, it was 44. And we’ve had 45 more language requests on top of that. The need is enormous.”
That led into the next major focus: India. He painted a vivid picture of the country—1.4 billion people, 780 languages, and a culture steeped in religious syncretism. He described how people pilgrimage to the Ganges River, hoping to wash away sins in the water. “But the only cleansing that matters,” he said, “is in the blood of Christ.”
Craig went on to describe the work being done to produce a faithful Hindi Bible. Hindi has over 609 million speakers—third highest in the world—and is a bridge language to more than 200 other dialects across India. “With a faithful Hindi Bible,” he said, “we can potentially reach over 1.1 billion people.”
But modern Hindi Bibles are facing the same issues. “They’ve removed phrases like ‘Son of God’ in John 6:69,” he explained. “And they’ve watered down essential doctrines. We’re working to restore what should never have been removed.”
He recalled his recent three-week mission trip to India, where he addressed over 1,500 people, spoke at youth conferences and Bible colleges, and helped launch the Gospel of John in Hindi. He also attended the 70th anniversary celebration of the Delhi Bible Institute, founded by one faithful man from Northern Ireland. “That one seed,” Craig said, “has now grown into hundreds of pastors going out across the nation. It’s incredible what God can do when we’re obedient.”
He closed with a charge to the church: “Let’s not water down the Word. Let’s not compromise. Let’s sow the seed faithfully and trust the Lord with the harvest.”
The evening ended with refreshments, conversation around the bookstall, and a renewed sense of the global mission of the church—rooted in the simple, powerful, and unchanged Word of God.
Article written by Shaun Fereday, Prison Chaplain (Sessional) and Leader @SFGH Church
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