Ron & Beth Moe

Personal Biography

We both grew up in missionary homes, Ron in Japan and Beth in the Philippines. Ron attended Biola and then went to Talbot Seminary for a year. Beth went to Columbia Bible College. We met at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Dallas and were married in 1978. Ron went back to seminary for another year and Beth worked until our first daughter, Sharon, came along. At that point we got our roles straightened out and Ron went to work. Beth devoted herself to being a godly wife and mother, which she has faithfully and successfully fulfilled ever since. She poured her life into our family, with the result that all of us love the Lord and are serving him in various ways.

We served with Wycliffe Bible Translators for 31 years, first as translators for the Maguindanaon people, a large group in the Philippines. Then Ron served as group leader in Uganda, helping to set up the work and start a number of translation projects. In 1992 we moved to Kenya where Ron began work as a linguistics consultant for eastern Africa. He developed a specialty in dictionary production and in 2000 developed a new method for collecting words and rapidly producing a dictionary (http://rapidwords.net/). The method has been used by hundreds of translators all over the world to produce a dictionary of their language.

Translators not only need a dictionary of their own language, they also need a dictionary of the source language. Ron has been working for 20 years on a new Greek lexicon to meet this need. The goal is to translate it into major languages around the world so that translators, pastors, and students of God’s Word can better understand the words and idioms that the Holy Spirit chose to express God’s truth. The lexicon has already been integrated into software used by Bible translators to help them more quickly find words in their vernacular dictionary that they can use to translate a particular Greek word. Steps are being taken to integrate the Greek lexicon into other Bible study software.