About Bible Society

From busy city streets to war-torn overseas villages, we strive to make the Bible available and alive so that all people may experience its life-changing message.

In some parts of the world, the Bible is difficult to access or is simply unavailable. In New Zealand, the Bible is readily available but many people are unaware of its value.

We work in New Zealand and in partnership with Bible Societies around the world to address this. We take the Bible and find ways to translate and distribute it, create digital formats, advocate for its place in society, and help people relate to and make sense of it in their everyday lives.

All our efforts are driven by one conviction: we believe that when people engage with the Bible, lives can change–for good.

Our Mission

To make the Bible accessible to everyone and encourage interaction with it.

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Our Vision

Our vision is about how we’re going to achieve our mission.

TRANSLATE - the Bible should be understandable to everyone

We work to support translation projects, particularly in the Asia/Pacific region, as well as ensuring the Bible and Bible-related resources are always available in contemporary Māori.

RESTORE - the Bible should be at the heart of life and service

Our aim is to bring the Bible back to where it should be – at the heart of Christian life and service. We’re working to encourage Christians around the world to interact with the Bible as a part of their everyday life.

ERADICATE - the Bible should be an agent of God's transformative power

We work in partnership with other agencies to bring the life-changing hope of the Bible to help eradicate poverty, injustice, illiteracy, division and violence in New Zealand and around the world.

ADVOCATE - the Bible should be lifted up in contemporary culture

As the Bible and its message is now so often marginalised in post-Christian societies, we work to lift up the Bible in the public space so as to build confidence in it as being relevant for life in contemporary culture.

DISTRIBUTE - the Bible should be accessible to everyone

Two hundred years after the founding of the Bible Society movement, there are still hundreds of millions of people without a Bible. Together, we work to ensure everyone who wants a Bible can have one, in a medium that suits them and at a price they can afford.

Our Mission Partners

Mel Bowen - a volunteer legend - about the run a marathon to raise funds for Bibles.

Mel Bowen – a volunteer legend – about to run a marathon to raise funds for Bibles.

We can only fulfil our mission with the help of committed staff, volunteers, churches, partner organisations and supporters.

They are our lifeblood. They enable us to reach across the breadth of the church in New Zealand with the message that the Bible needs to play an important role in the Christian faith journey.

Volunteers raise funds, raise awareness and fervently pray for worldwide Bible mission. Their contribution is priceless.

Churches and partner organisations support us in achieving our mission objectives. Working together with other organisations to make the Bible available and encourage interaction with it is a key part of our strategy.

Being a charity, we rely on the generosity of many New Zealanders who provide funds for Bible mission. For generations, our supporters have made sacrifices in order for Bibles to be translated, published and distributed to those eager to hear God’s story.

Translation is at our heart

¹Figures are from United Bible Societies as at 31/12/2015. The figures for the number of language speakers is based on the best available data which currently totals 6.5 billion, less than the actual world population.

Translation remains at the heart of Bible Society work in New Zealand and around the world.

Although New Zealanders can easily access the Bible themselves, many people around the world are still waiting for the Bible in their own language. Only then can the Bible become alive and relevant in their everyday lives.

With 497 million people still without any part of Scripture in their language, there’s much work to be done. To aid the global Bible Society community in this task, we raise funds in New Zealand for translation projects all over the world. The focus of this support remains the South Pacific and Asia, where we also provide expertise in helping local communities bring the Bible into their language.

At home, we’re working with Māori Christian leaders to ensure the Bible continues to be available to a new generation of Māori speakers. We’re also looking forward to soon publishing the first ever full Bible in Tokelauan.