John G Paton was a 19th century Scot who went as a missionary to the South Seas, to what was then the New Hebrides but is now called Vanuatu. One of the things he did was to reduce one of the languages (Aniwan) there to writing and translate the Bible into it. One of the things he discovered early on was that there was no word in Aniwan for "faith." It is pretty difficult to translate the Bible without it. One day, the story goes, he went on a hunt with one of the natives. They shot a large deer in the course of the hunt, and tying its legs together and supporting it on a pole, laboriously trekked back down the mountain path to Paton's home near the seashore. As they reached the veranda both men threw the deer down, and the native immediately flopped into one of the deck chairs that stood on the porch exclaiming (in Aniwan), “My, it is good to stretch yourself out here and rest.” Paton immediately jumped to his feet and recorded the phrase. In his final translation of the New Testament this was the word used to convey the idea of trust, faith, and belief - to stretch out and rest. That is what we need to do - to rest on Christ. That is what ministers must preach.
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