July 10, 2026

Summary #

Why should English-speaking Christians care about the Spanish Bible? In the first episode of the Spanish Bible Podcast, Pastor Shane Rice introduces the purpose behind this series and explains why the Spanish Bible is an important subject for pastors, missionaries, Bible college students, church leaders, and anyone interested in worldwide evangelism.

Drawing from over a decade of missionary service in Peru and years of ministry in Spanish, Pastor Rice explains why Spanish is one of the most influential languages in the world and why understanding the Spanish Bible is increasingly important for churches supporting Spanish-speaking ministries. Throughout this podcast series, we’ll examine:

• The history of the Spanish Bible

• The Reina-Valera tradition

• Biblical manuscripts and textual issues

• Translation philosophy

• Common misconceptions

• Practical ministry applications

Whether you’re preparing for the mission field, serving in a bilingual ministry, or simply want to better understand the Spanish Bible, this series is designed to provide clear, biblical, and historically accurate information.

Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes as we explore one of the most important Bible translation discussions affecting the Spanish-speaking world.

Full transcript below #

Hi, I’m Shane Rice. I’m the pastor of Anchor Baptist Church, and in this podcast, we are going to discuss why we should care about the Spanish Bible. And before we even get into that, let me give you a little bit of who I am and where I’ve come from, because I believe that’s very. Relevant to the conversation, I spent four years in high school studying Spanish, which is not uncommon. But after that, I went to Peru and I spent the entire summer there, and I realized that I really needed a lot more Spanish learning. And so after going there, after high school, I came back, I went to Bible college, I was in Bible college for three years. Then I raised my support to go on deputation, when deputation raised my support to go to Peru, South America. And I started language school in 2002 and finished it up in 2003. And I spent the next 12 years working in Spanish in Peru. I pastor a church, started a church, worked in a deaf children’s home. And so I have a lot of experience. I preached a lot for a while. I had actually preached more in Spanish than I had in English. And so I spent a lot of time working in the Spanish language. To this very day, I have maintained my Spanish language. I believe it’s important. I feel like it is a very useful tool. And so I am fluent in Spanish. I generally try to read through my Bible once in English and then once in Spanish. And so that’s how I have also stayed on top of it, besides the opportunities that present themselves for me to be able to use the Spanish language. Why have I done all of that? Why, why does all of that matter? And why should you care about the Spanish Bible or the Spanish language? Um, I have a couple of reasons. I believe that it’s very important. Spanish is the second largest spoken language in the world today. Um, you think about what’s the first, okay. Some people are like, Oh, English, English. No, it’s not English. Um, the, the largest spoken language today is China, Chinese. Uh, because if you think about the concentration of people in China, uh, they all speak Chinese. So there’s a very large portion of people. I would argue that they are, uh, confined to one area and it is not as broad spread. Um, I will tell you this, I will say this, that English is undoubtedly the, uh, the business language and is very worldwide spoken. I would definitely argue that. And I would not tell you that. English is not important, um, because it is, it is in the business world is in the trade world. Uh, it is in, in many different aspects, but as far as native speakers, Spanish is the second largest language in the world. And I would argue that it’s very important because it is very global and widespread. I mean, you look at much of South America, I know not all of South America, but much of South America, arguably the majority of South America. It’s Spanish speaking, uh, Central America, Spain, um, and then I would also argue that in America, Spanish has greatly increased. I mean, you don’t have to go very far before you find a Spanish speaker. And so with all the influx and the amount of people who speak Spanish around us, Spanish has become very important. There’s no doubt about that. And it is a very relevant language. It’s something that we should pay attention to and be concerned about, uh, because, um, it’s, it’s all around us on top of that, you should also be concerned, uh, because you probably either pastor a church or go to a church that is supporting a Spanish speaking ministry. Now, if you’re not shame on you, you ought to be in a church that’s supporting missionaries. And I don’t know any church. That doesn’t support at least one Spanish speaking ministry somewhere. And uh, because of the prevalence of the Spanish language, maybe you don’t support a missionary that speaks Chinese or is going to China, but you probably support a missionary that’s going to the Spanish speaking world somewhere. Many churches in America even have Spanish ministries and there are Spanish churches right here in America. And so I would argue that Spanish is extremely important. And because of how close it is to us. It becomes very important in our ministry. What do we believe about the Spanish Bible? What can we know about the Spanish Bible? That’s where I want to help you because I feel like there is a lack of information. We don’t always take a great interest in all of the, uh, missionaries that we support in the Bibles that they use. It’s not possible. Um, but Spanish is one of those languages that’s so prominent. It exists all around us. Us. And I will tell you that there is cut and dry lines, uh, that easily define a Spanish Bible. That’s not true in Italian. I studied Italian. I was in Italy for two years. Studied Italian. I do speak some Italian. I have, will not tell you I’m fluent. Uh, I have, I’ve worked really hard to stay on top of my Spanish and I have not done the same in, in, in Italian. But, uh, while I was there, I really looked into this. The Spanish or the Italian Bible and where you talk about a, uh, it’s less cut and dry. There, there are lots of, of other issues, but in Spanish it is, it’s pretty cut and dry and I’m going to give you the cut and dried version in this podcast. And so you stay tuned and watch for more episodes and I’m not going to try and make them long. I’m going to try and make short, uh, bite sized videos that you can watch that are not going to eat up a lot of your time. But I’ll tell you this, that Spanish is a very, very important language. It’s relevant to your ministry. It’s relevant to my ministry. It’s relevant to every ministry in America because, uh, it’s so prevalent around us and it exists. You probably don’t have to go very far down the road before you run into a Spanish speaker. You might already even know one. Um, and, and so it is extremely important. And I want to help you with that. And I want to help you have the information, uh, on that, uh, so that you can be better informed about the Spanish Bible issue. You tune in next time, uh, subscribe, rate, review, uh, whatever you want to do. But, uh, stay tuned and we’ll give you more information that will help you out on all of this issue.