The translation of Christian doctrine into Amerindian languages during the Spanish colonial period raises important questions for translation studies, which call for multi- and interdisciplinary analysis. In this article we provide a review of the literature on missionary linguistics and how such cultural encounters have been approached. In particular, we reflect on the contact between the Nahuas and the missionaries in the New Spain during the 16th century from a philosophical perspective in order to analyse two examples of translation for evangelical purposes, taken from the Coloquios de 1524 by Fray Bernardino Sahagún (1986). In the process, we will comment on certain similarities between colonial times and current events and note the relevance of concepts pertaining to the fields of linguistics, translation studies and philosophy for the analysis of the problem of intercultural communication and the political and cultural bases underlying the New Spanish case. This leads us to question to what extent these translations, carried out in collaboration between the indigenous population and the missionaries, were a relevant factor in terms of cultural resistance in the face of the colonialist aggression of religious imposition.