Bro. Dr. Mathews Vergis

You have translated the Bible into Malayalam and several other languages. What moves you so passionately to the Bible?

The passion for any vocation for the glory of the Almighty God arises from the eagerness and readiness to work for God, when one accepts the Call of the Almighty God. The Almighty God had called me three decades ago in a three-day Fasting Prayer for the building of His Kingdom. I told the Lord that I had no qualifications to take up the mantle as, I had not even attended Sunday school. My knowledge of the Bible was limited to a few short Psalms. ”I know whom I am calling, just tell me whether you can accept my call.” I accepted the call, reminding Him once more of my inadequacy and ignorance about the Bible. “I will lead you and guide you, I have great plans for you” the Lord said.

My wife Raaji and I prayed and waited upon the Lord to show me a path to start my journey. Finally, the Lord instructed me to start a fasting prayer ministry where people from all churches could gather together to fast and pray for the people who needed healing, deliverance and anointment of the Holy Spirit. It was thus started in a 24hour fasting prayer on the 29th March 1985, with just eight members including Raaji and myself. As I had no formal education of Malayalam, I prepared my messages referring the English Bible. But when these Bible verses were read, some of them did not confirm to the original English meaning. The most popular Malayalam version of the Bible, printed in 1910 was widely used. Though the Malayalam language had taken great strides, with the change of some fonts and literary excellence over the next 100 years, these changes were not incorporated into the Malayalam version. The protestant churches and congregations who controlled the Bible Society did not make any efforts to translate the Bible, into modern Malayalam. I had been making notes of the changes needed, ever since my first sermon.

I returned to Dubai and called for a General Body Meeting of the Word to World Ministries. We had a down to earth discussion in the general body meeting. Many suggested, we fast and pray a couple of years before launching the project as it was a very challenging mission. The mainstream churches and the Christian groups would never encourage their flock to read the new version. They would try to discourage and dissuade people from reading the new version. Moreover, an enormous sum of money was required for the printing and publishing of a new version of the Bible. Failure of the translation would not only destroy the ministry but ruin my spiritual walk as well. None of these arguments could dampen my passion for the translation of the Bible. My answer to all their arguments was the promise that God gave me – “I will be with you”

A 52-week Fasting Prayer Crusade “Millennium modern Malayalam Bible Project” was declared and thus began the work for the fulfilment of my passion for translation of the Word of God.

You are committed to the Word of God. You have founded a unique Bible Museum which is one of the greatest in the world, a 24/7 television channel which strives to spread the Word of God across the world. You have built a beautiful chapel named ‘The Paradise of Holiness’ which is adorned by the relics of various Saints. The Holy place of the chapel is glorious with the presence of five altars. Can you tell us the secret of your life and values that inspire such actions of yours?

It is the love, care, compassion and blessings showered on me by the Almighty God that has enabled me to complete manifold projects for His glory. I had no idea of any of these goals when I accepted His call three decades ago. He asked me to start a fasting prayer fellowship, where people from different churches could come together to fast and pray for the sick and the suffering. The deliverance of the helpless people with satanic afflictions and also experience the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. In my experience over the years, I have observed that fasting prayers was the least popular spiritual activity as it involved abstention from food.

People attending such extra spiritual activities desire to reap maximum blessings in the shortest possible time. Many refuse to join the fasting prayer ministry because the shortest Bible fast is 24 hours. The third reason that dissuades people from observing fasting prayers, is their lack of biblical knowledge about the great and mighty miracles and blessings experienced or attained by the people who fasted. Though these factors tried to discourage me, I trusted in the Lord who called me and inaugurated the fasting prayer ministry on 29th of March 1985 with a 24-hour fasting prayer attended by just eight members including me and my wife. Six of them were fasting for the first time and they experienced the anointing of the Holy Spirit for the first time in their lives. As time went by, more and more people joined the ministry experiencing the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. And the ministry spread its wings to different countries.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Phil 4:13) and this strength is given by the power of the Holy Spirit which is attained by fasting prayer.

You have mentioned that your spiritual achievement was made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit attained in fasting prayers. Fasting in its simplest meaning is the abstinence from food. Do you say that abstaining from food for a few days will enable one to get gifts and graces from God to take up and complete mighty tasks for God?

No, it means a lot more than abstention from food. Fasting can be divided into two categories namely non-religious and religious. Non-religious fasts are fasts observed with no spiritual goals. Political fasts are the most famous and widely used fasts even today. It is taken by the people to draw attention of those in authority to their grievances and problems. It is used as a non-violent weapon for independent movements and liberation struggles. It is used in naturopathy for the treatment of certain diseases. Fasting is believed to assist natural healing. It is used as a cosmetic remedy for achieving weight loss and shaping the body. Religious fasts include prayer and meditation along with the abstinence from food. The Biblical fast ordered by God was a 24-hour abstinence of food accompanied by prayer and supplication in repentance for the forgiveness of sins which had drawn them away from God. This transforms them to a new creation in Jesus Christ, with the anointment of the Holy Spirit and this empowers them to take up mighty tasks for the glory of His kingdom.

“The passion for any vocation for the glory of the Almighty God arises from the eagerness and readiness to work for God   I accepted the call, reminding Him once more of my inadequacy and ignorance about the Bible.”

The secret of one life is the unseen life of interiority which is also is also the consciousness. You have also the orthodox heritage. As an ardent and faithful layman, what do you have to say to the churches in Kerala?

India is expected to become the most populous nation in the world in 2023. This would mean that the Indian population would be around 150 crores of which only 2.3 % are Christians. Ethnologue reports that India has 398 languages of which 387 are living languages and 11 are extinct. There are 32 languages which have more than a million speakers. The Christian churches in Kerala are fabulously wealthy. They have a great responsibility to give the Word of God to the 97.7% non-Christians in the country. Bible translation projects should be included in their annual budgets. Though St. Thomas had come to India 2000 years ago, our churches have failed to reach the unreached in the remote villages of India. The churches in Kerala should awake and create awareness among their flock about the necessity to give the Word to the unreached masses. Parishes which spend huge amounts on fireworks, illuminations and decorations for their festivities should limit them and adopt Bible translation projects to reach the unreached. This is the urgent and most important need of the day.

Translation of the Bible is not simply an act of linguistically translate the Bible into a language, but an act of translating it into the various languages and cultures in lives, in art, literature and rituals. Do you think the churches and Christians are seriously translating the Bible into the life and cultures?

There are about 7137 languages worldwide identified to date. And it is the responsibility of the Spirit filled Christians to translate the Word of God into as many languages as possible instead of using their resources to examine and re-examine the impact of the linguistic translations of the Bible in the culture, art and rituals of human lives. Such researches on great classics by Homer, Tolstoy, Shakespeare etc, give revelations about the culture, art and living in their times. The Almighty God is the author of the Bible which is a collection of books of several ordinary people from different culture and times conveying God’s commandments, teachings and prophecies written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit over a span of 1600 years.

Every Church has its own translation of the Bible and there is no translation which is accepted by all churches. Why is there no ecumenical effort?

New Christian churches are formed very frequently not by the addition of people who embrace Christianity, but by people breaking away from their parent Churches. Ecumenism exists only on paper. The leadership speaks about unity and ecumenism but the flocks are divided with rebellion and rivalry. The dream of Jesus that everyone will be known as His disciples by their love for one another is sadly absent. In such circumstances no ecumenical effort can bring forth a common translation acceptable by all churches.

SatyaVedapustakam is the Malayalam translation of the Bible wi-dely used in the non – Catholic Churches in Kerala. I do not think that the critical and the accepted text of Nestle Aland is used in it. Is your translation on the commonly accepted, ‘TextusReceptus’ of Nestle Aland edited Greek New Testament and the Masoretic text for the Old Testament?

Bible translations were few till the beginning of the 20th century. Direct translations from the Masoretic text ‘TextusReceptus’ and other ancient texts demands a thorough knowledge of the languages of the original texts. Besides printing was a very expensive procedure. The literacy rate was yet another factor which slowed down the process of Bible Translations. The whole scenario changed after the two World Wars of the 20th century. The advent of computers made available the translations of the original texts in plenty. There was no need to spend several years in mastering the languages for making translation of the original text.

The development of printing technology has made printing cheaper when compared to the ‘Guttenberg’ days. This, along with the increase of the literacy rate world wide has accelerated the Bible translation process. The Bible has been the largest printed book for decades. According to Ethnologue, there currently is 7137 living languages in the world. According to the statistics of 2020, the whole Bible has been translated into 704 languages and the New Testament has been translated into 1551 languages; and parts of the Bible had been translated into 1160 languages. This means that the Word of God has yet to reach 4000 or more language groups. Let us pray for the awakening of the Christian Churches with an abundant anointment of the Holy Spirit to present the Word of God to every language group on earth.

You have named your translation of the Bible as ‘VishudhaSathyavedapusthakam.’ Satyavedapusthakam is an old and very good translation widely used in the non-Catholic churches in Kerala. You added an adjective ‘Vishudha’ (which means Holy) to the old name Sathyavedapusthakam. Why?

Any translation of literature to another language is considered useful and successful only when it can be easily read and understood. Many translations, have become obsolete because they were made decades ago, cannot be read and easily understood. They have not been revised according to the growth of the language as times progressed. The Satyavedapusthakam, which is the Malayalam translation of the Bible was first published in 1910. It was a very good translation for those times. The Malayalam language made rapid growth in the next 100 years. Changes were made in the fonts, usages were modified, the style of literature was refined and shadows of other languages which had crept in were cleansed. Unfortunately, the Satyavedapusthakam could not assimilate the transformation of the Malayalam language even after nine decades of its first publication.

I had written down the changes required and went to the Bangalore headquarters of The Bible Society of India to present these findings to them. They never bothered to look into the file and said that they could not entertain people who came with such suggestions, and asked me to submit them to my parent church. I was heartbroken and wept at the feet of God. They refused to even take a look at the files and in fact, I was indirectly asked to leave. As the hours went after the meeting, at around midnight, I heard the sweet, comforting voice of the Lord. “My son, do not be upset by the things that happened, I am now granting you the gift of translating my Word to many languages. There will be storms and floods which will try to drown you. Even the people who claim my name will not accept you and your work. But do not be afraid. I am with you; I will not let you down.”

I returned to Dubai, the next morning and started the Millennium modern Malayalam Bible translation Project and went ahead with fasting prayer. Personally, I have taken three 40 day fasting prayers, and 52 one day fasting prayers have been observed by my ministry ‘Word to World’ across the world for the completion of the translation. The Bible was released on 22nd December 2000.

As to your question why the word ‘Vishudha’ was added to the old translation to make a new name for my translation. I like to say that the word ‘Vishudha’ has many meanings other than the one you have put forth. All these meanings given in the ‘ShabdhaTharavali’ aptly fit the new name. The second important feature in presenting the new Bible translation is to present it as user friendly format as possible. In English we find so many versions of the Bible, highlighting its special features. The Archaeological Bible, The Prophesy Bible, The Promise Bible, The Good News Bible, The True Bible and hundreds of other Bibles which are all examples of this phenomena which prompt many to read the Bible.