Reformed Resources in India Are Equipping and Strengthening the Church

From Church Planting to Printing

Gareth Franks did not intend to start a publishing and translation ministry in India. Originally a pastor from South Africa, he first went to India to plant churches, eventually planting two in the second-most populous state of Maharashtra. This church ministry work led Gareth to start Alethia Publications, printing tracts and other materials for his own use. But as the ministry grew, so did the need for rich theological resources.

[This is what caused us to] open a printing and publishing and training company, and since then, the Lord has opened more doors for us. We got in contact with [a few key authors] in the beginning, who gave us some of [their] books to translate, books that helped in training leaders and elders. And then we started making connections with 9Marks and Crossway. So doors have opened, and it’s become what it is today, a ministry that we didn’t plan on.

Through partnership with Crossway’s Global Ministry efforts, Alethia has translated many needed resources to strengthen the church and build up believers in India.

However, with thousands of dialects and languages in India, it would be difficult to translate into every tongue. Therefore, Alethia seeks to translate resources into some of the more dominant languages with the goal of reaching a large portion of the population, many who have never heard the name of Jesus. They currently publish books in eight of the more than twenty main languages in India—with plans to eventually translate in as many of those twenty languages as possible.

One large translation project that will be available later this year is a Hindi study Bible that uses the notes from the ESV Study Bible. Gareth explains that he hoped the study Bible would strengthen the church and equip believers “so they can do the work of an evangelist and be effective wherever they are, at home, at work, or at school, to help the church make disciples.”

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From Tradition to Transformation

Despite tradition dating Christianity in India back to the Apostle Thomas in the first century, Gareth noticed that, for some, being a Christian was more an external identity rather than an internal reality.

For me, the motivating factor to print the Hindi Study Bible was the shallowness of Christianity in the churches in India. Even though there’s a [Christian] presence, the churches are a mile wide but an inch deep. There’s not a lot of good Reformed teaching, although that is improving, and it has improved over the last ten years. But the church has become more cultural rather than gospel-centered. And the Hindi Study Bible is going to help people come back to the gospel. It’s not about your culture. It’s about the gospel.

In India, people are generally born into their religion. If one is born into a Muslim family, one is Muslim. If one is born into a Hindu family, being Hindu will be one’s religious identity. And if you are born into a Christian family, you likely will claim Christianity as your own, whether you truly understand the hope of the gospel or not. Translation projects like the Hindi Study Bible will enable those who already have a surface knowledge of Jesus to grow deeper roots that will cause them to flourish beyond a religious identity to embedded freedom in salvation through Christ.

But those who are familiar with Christianity are not the only ones who Gareth hopes to reach through Alethia’s various projects. By translating and providing resources in addition to the study Bible, the gospel will be more accessible to even those born into other religious identities.

The Lord brought one woman to himself through reading some of these resources. Even though she had been born into a Hindu family and having been one of the village’s demon-possessed vessels for rituals, this woman came to faith in Christ by reading books from Alethia. She then began attending Gareth’s church. She was so changed by the truths she was encountering in her reading that she chose not to go to her home village for an annual pagan festival. Recognizing that her old life of pagan worship did not reflect who she had become, she asked to stay in the church so that she could keep reading and immerse herself in truth.

Biblical truths and gospel-rich resources are bringing people to Christ and building up those in church. Gareth hopes that through the translation and printing of Bibles and theological resources locally, Alethia will be able to provide the rich gospel hope that would transform people in their everyday lives.

From Translation to Transformation

One translated book that has had a remarkable impact on the local church is Parenting by Paul David Tripp. So far, by God’s grace, it has been translated into the Indian languages of Hindi, Kannada, and Marathi, and has proved to be an invaluable resource for churches and parents, reshaping how believers view parenting and the gospel.

Members of one of the churches planted by Gareth received copies of Parenting from Alethia during a church retreat. One pastor shared about the transformation he’s seen in the parents of his congregation: “They never understood how the gospel can shape the way we as Christian parents are to parent. In a culture where most children are left to raise themselves and parents are very unintentional in raising their children, this book was a wake-up call for us.”

The book has given believers in India more than just parenting help and tricks. The Lord has used this resource to propel them into a deeper understanding of Christ and the gospel. The same pastor later told a story of “one father [who] said that after reading this book, he realized he had been trying to force his sons to follow a list of techniques in order to manufacture a new heart in them. But he has now learned that his parenting needs to be centered on the gospel and not his own strategies.” Healthy behavioral change only happens through a change in heart by the gospel.

The recipients of these theologically profound translated works are not the only ones whose lives are being refreshed. The Lord is using even the exercise of translation to grow those whom he has gifted to do the translation.

Having read Parenting three times over the course of translation and proofreading, one translator, who is also a pastor, has come to a deeper appreciation of the reality that the call to parent is a deeply theological exercise. He says the book “protected me from an illusion that rules like ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ or strict discipline can reach the heart. . . . But this book has shown me that I have to look at parenting through the lens of all the doctrines of grace and our faith.” The work also highlighted for him the need for theologically robust resources for the people of his congregation. He says, “We really need such resources for practical Christianity and from the theological perspective, like Parenting.”

Lord willing, the partnership between Crossway’s Global Ministry and Alethia will continue to provide much-needed gospel perspective to the church in India.

Thank the Lord for all he is doing in India through Alethia and the work they are doing to glorify the Lord by equipping the church and God’s people with local language resources.

Pray that the Lord will continue to bless the translation work and the translators who do the work to get the resources out to strengthen and build up God’s church.