Getting to know a people is one way of getting to know God. Scripture Trove's new All Nations section currently offers thirteen country pages and twenty-five group viewing guides. This article introduces the section and explains how to use it. It begins with a striking gap: Ethiopia's church is a thousand years older than Britain's, yet we almost always picture Europe and North America when someone says 'Christian countries'. That gap deserves a pause. From 'all the families of the earth' in Genesis 12 to the people of every nation and tribe in Revelation 7, the Bible's language of all nations is never merely rhetorical. This introduction explains three reasons to know a people: they are a work of God's hands; every people bears both the beauty of common grace and the fractures of the Fall; and seeing others helps us recognise what we take for granted about ourselves. It also shows how to use the thirteen country pages for personal reading, group viewing and prayer.
Getting to know a people is one way of getting to know God. This article explains why it deserves our time, and how individuals and groups can use it.
The church in Ethiopia is a thousand years older than the church in Britain.
In Acts 8, the Ethiopian eunuch returned home reading Isaiah. That thread has never been broken. Ethiopia officially became a Christian country in the fourth century, while England still had more than two hundred years to wait before Augustine's mission arrived. Yet when we say 'Christian countries', the places that spring to mind are almost always Europe and North America.
That gap itself deserves a pause. It reveals how our picture of the world reaches us through a few familiar channels.
When God chose Abraham, the purpose was already written into the promise: 'All the families of the earth will be blessed through you' (Genesis 12:3). The Bible begins along this line and ends along it too. In Revelation 7, the people standing before the throne come from 'every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages'.
Notice that in this picture they have not all become identical. Their languages and peoples remain. God has not melted all peoples into one kind of people; he has welcomed them all in.
Between those two ends, Paul states it still more directly in Athens: God 'made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwellings' (Acts 17:26). Where a people settles, when it rises and when it declines are not random accidents.
Seen along this line, getting to know a people becomes more substantial than simply 'learning about other people'. You are looking at a work of God's hands.
One is common grace. God has distributed good gifts among every people, not only among those who believe in him.
Japanese people often speak of avoiding meiwaku: not causing trouble for others. This is not coldness; it is a considerate concern for other people. Vietnamese people speak of tình cảm, the bonds of affection between people. In Malaysia, families open their doors at festivals and anyone can come in for a meal. These are real goods, and they were not learnt in church.
The other is fracture, often growing out of the very same thing.
The Japanese wish 'not to cause trouble' can make people afraid to ask for help. Eventually it becomes a 'society without ties': someone dies alone at home and is not discovered for months. Often the person did have family, but the relationships have broken down beyond tracing. Brazil's tendency to say racial problems do not exist sounds more respectable than America's arguments. Yet precisely because no one acknowledges the problem, it becomes harder to discuss than a problem openly on the table.
We must see both sides together. See only the good half and what you write becomes a travel brochure. See only the bad half and it becomes a collection of curiosities. Human beings are like this: made in God's image, and fallen.
The things we find hardest to see in ourselves are the things we assume 'naturally ought to be this way'.
Indonesia has a word, pribumi, meaning 'indigenous'. Chinese people may have lived there for generations upon generations, yet one word can place them back on the 'outside'. It may sound far away, but gentler versions operate around us every day: outsiders and locals, whether someone has local household registration, whether they speak the local language. Someone may live in the same city for twenty years and still be considered 'not from here'.
When James 2 says not to show partiality, its example concerns clothes, rather than skin colour. A person with 'a gold ring, in fine clothing' receives a different welcome from someone 'in filthy clothing'. The passage has never been confined to one particular way of drawing lines. It addresses the practice of ranking people by their background.
Seeing the same question in another country makes it easier to admit that the question exists in our own home too. This is one of the most practical benefits of knowing other peoples.
Scripture Trove's All Nations section currently covers thirteen countries: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Brazil and Ethiopia.
Every page follows the same sections: geography, a brief history, the church in this land, keys to the culture, festivals, film and literature, their voices, and prayer for the land. Here are a few examples:
Every figure on a page identifies who produced it, in which year, and how it was calculated. An estimate is labelled an estimate; it is never presented as a direct measurement.
Read on your own: One page in an evening, in any order. Begin with a country you are already curious about.
Explore together as a group: The thirteen country pages include twenty-five viewing and reading guides. Each offers a film or book, discussion questions and a Scripture passage. Each also states whether the complete film is suitable to show to a group. Some are recommended for discussion only, with the reasons explained in the guide. The guides are arranged by theme: loneliness and broken relationships; poverty and the way we see people; power and speaking truth; difficulties at home; and living between two worlds. Choose one when preparing your midweek group, and you have enough for a session.
Pray for the land: Each page ends with a few prayers drawn from the actual circumstances described there, going beyond a general 'Lord, please bless this country'.
Knowing other peoples does not instantly make us more spiritual. It does something slower: it turns 'the world' from an abstract noun back into people with names.
There is a very simple way to test this. The next time you hear someone mention a country or an ethnic group, is the first thing that comes to mind a label, or a particular person?
'After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could count, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.' (Revelation 7:9)
They will all be there on that day. Today, begin by getting to know a few.