One of the more interesting consequences of the Olympic games being held in China has been the Chinese government’s slight loosening of religion restrictions within its borders.

Granted, there’s still much persecution and government intervention when it comes to religion, but something like this would have been unheard of 40 years ago:

China will provide 10,000 free Chinese-English bilingual Bibles to be distributed in the Olympic Village where the Olympic athletes and media are housed, as reported by the China Daily newspaper. The bilingual Bible text will include the CUV (Chinese Union Version) and the ESV (English Standard Version), appearing in two side-by-side columns per page. The CUV Bible is the most widely distributed Chinese Bible in the world, and the ESV Bible has recently become the fastest-growing English language Bible in the world.

In addition to the 10,000 bilingual CUV-ESV Bibles, 30,000 New Testaments and 100,000 bilingual editions of the four Gospels will also be made available at the Olympic Games.

Because cultural and academic leaders in China are seeking to understand the influence of the Bible on the worldview and culture of the West, there is a growing interest in Chinese-English bilingual Bibles in mainland China. “We are especially grateful,” Crossway President Dr. Lane Dennis notes, “that the ESV was selected by Chinese Christian leaders for publication with Chinese CUV Bible, through our partnership with the British and Foreign Bible Society. Since both the CUV and the ESV are ‘essentially literal’ Bible translations, they are ideally suited for a side-by-side comparison of the two languages. What a wonderful thing it would be if thousands of people would learn English—and Chinese!—by reading the Bible in side-by-side bilingual editions.”

Read more over at the ESV Bible Blog.

This month, one sporting event will demand our attention above all others: the 2008 Olympics. Here at Gospel.com, we’ll be pointing out a few people and organizations in our community that do sports ministry: outreach to sports fans and athletes.

Does it seem strange to imagine a “sports ministry”? It might sound odd at first, but consider that athletics is an activity held in esteem by nearly every culture around the world, today and throughout history. Whether you like your football in the American or European variety; whether you run a marathon or swim the English channel—athletic achievement is recognized all over the world as a way to explore our own humanity.

Which means that it’s a natural and universal way to talk about the human condition… and that’s why evangelists going all the way back to the Apostle Paul have used sports as a metaphor for the spirtual life:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. —Hebrews 12:1

We’ll take note of specific sports outreaches and ministries in the next few weeks, as the Olympics play out. But it seems appropriate to start out with a short reflection on Paul’s use of the language of sports to talk about spiritual truth. Ron Hutchcraft has a devotional message (in text and audio) that examines what Paul means when he talks about running the race and carrying the torch, with an Olympics twist:

Now, Paul must have enjoyed the ancient Olympic Games. He made several references to them. As he writes his letter to his spiritual apprentice, Timothy, you can almost picture Paul as a torch bearer of the message of Jesus Christ. Writing from a prison cell, he’s on his last lap before he is going to collapse into the arms of Jesus. But right now he’s concerned about who will carry the torch from here.

Read the full devotional for more—and check back later this week as we look at sports ministries here in the Gospel.com community!

Mission Network News reports on the AIDS pandemic:

Approximately 2 million people died from AIDS in 2007, down from about 2.2 million deaths in 2005, UNAIDS reported on Tuesday.

However, Gary Schneider, President and CEO of Every Orphan’s Hope, warned that the battle is far from over. The report also showed that some 2.7 million people worldwide were newly infected in 2007, bringing the total number of people infected with AIDS to 33 million.

“We have seen tremendous progress being made on the fight against HIV/AIDS, but I think even to applaud those numbers might be a little bit premature,” Schneider said. “We see that there’s still 2 million people a year who are dying from HIV/AIDS, and the total number of people receiving new infections each year is still continuing to rise.”

Every Orphan’s Hope ministers to orphans impacted by the AIDS crisis in Zambia, the home of about a million orphans. It comes alongside the Zambian church to care for about 400 children on a monthly basis and to reach a total of several thousand children every year through its Camp Hope Bible camps.

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Read more over at Mission Network News.