The Great William Tyndale

INTRODUCTION

How many Bibles do you have in your home?

How many Bibles do you have in your possession?

How many English Bibles belong to you?

I was interested to know the answer for myself. I counted at the office and my wife counted at home.

We found that we have close to 50.

Maybe that isn’t a surprise because I am a pastor, but for many in the world today, the idea of having just one page of Scripture in your own heart language would be a dream.

And if you were to rewind to the 1500’s, our English speaking brothers and sisters of that era would look at us with pure awe.

To own 50 Bibles would be an abundance of riches in their eyes

A gratuitous heap of glory lining the bookshelves

A heap of glory worth more than all the gold that is in the world

They would marvel at all the different translations that we have. They would marvel at the study notes. They would marvel at the precision of the print on the page. They would marvel at the ease with which we could get one of these Bibles.

They might wonder how we find time to do anything but read our Bibles.

They would think, “With such knowledge at your heart’s fingertips, how can you ever pull yourself away?”

They would ask, “What did you learn today? What did He teach you? Where did His grace find you as you read the words?”

And they would be right.

We are a Bible-rich people in the English-speaking world.

There is more Bible curriculum, there are more Bible studies, Bible podcasts, Bible software, Bible reference books, Bible web sites, Bible YouTube videos and just flat out Bibles, in circulation today than there have ever been.

But there was a time when that was not so.

There was a time when an English-speaking believer had no access to the Word of God.

There was a time when the Bible had been locked away from the sheep of God by the so called shepherds of God.

And there was a man who laid everything on the line to undo that wrong.

I want to tell you about that man today.

He is a man who has shaped the way you speak the English language.

He is the father of the modern English language.

He is a man who molded the way you talk about your faith.

He is a man who delivered the Lord’s Word to you in your native tongue with blood.

He is a man that we are all indebted to beyond our ability to really articulate it.

He is a man that God gave to the world at the right time, for the right work, in the right region—all for the sake of the right Word of God.

That man’s name is William Tyndale.

And on a weekend where we are preparing to celebrate our freedom in this nation as Americans—a freedom that recognizes our God-given religious liberty—we should stop and remember William Tyndale.

For just as many have died to protect your God-given rights in this country—William Tyndale died so that you could have a Bible to read in the land of the free.

PRAYER

Father, today is different.

I am not going to exposit a text, but a man.

I am not going to exegete a Scripture, but a life.

I am not going to teach through a passage, but a person.

And yet, in studying the great cloud of witnesses and those who by faith have conquered before us, we learn much of You and something of what we must be.

As we look as your servant’s work and stop to meditate upon the Scriptures along the way, provoke our hearts to have an unquenchable, undying thirst for Your Word where we long to be completely satisfied in You.

We want to look past Tyndale today, Lord. Through him.

For in his faithfulness, what do we see, but Your faithfulness?

In his sacrifice, we see Your worth.

And in his life, we see Your Son.

We want them to say the same of us.

Give us the heart of William Tyndale, Lord. But more than that, give us the heart of the Redeemer. In Christ’s name, Amen.

BIRTH TO LITTLE SODBURY

ORIGIN STORY

William Tyndale was born in the 1490’s.

He grew up in Gloucestershire, England, on the border of England and Wales.

He was born to a fairly privileged family in one of the richest parts of the country.

In light of that, his family could accord to send him to Oxford when he was just 12 years old.

He had two brothers, both of which joined him in his Reformation convictions.

In later years, his brother John even got in trouble for distributing Bibles.

From 1506-1516, William Tyndale is at Oxford and he is learning.

This is where he becomes a man.

This is where he grows up.

This is where he earns degrees and his mind is progressing at a rapid rate.

He is becoming the most brilliant linguist and one of the most brilliant minds of Europe, while studying for a decade at Oxford.

He is daily listening to lectures and reading hand-written books.

But he is not studying theology during most of his time there.

And even as he is allowed to begin pursuing theology toward the end of his time at Oxford, the students are not allowed to study the Bible as they study theology.

Now, you might say—that doesn’t make sense!

You are right.

But you must understand the political and religious climate that Tyndale is born into.

EUROPE IN THE EARLY 1500’s

Before William Tyndale, upstream from the Protestant Reformation, was John Wycliffe.

Wycliffe argued that the Bible was supremely authoritative over the Christian life.

After Wycliffe died, his followers carried on. They were called the Lollards.

Pushing back against the Lollards, ensuring that England would stay in spiritual darkness, the church says that you cannot translate the Bible into English.

It is a dangerous thing to translate the text of the Holy Scripture out of one tongue into another, for in the translation the same sense is not always easily kept…We therefore decree and ordain, that no man hereafter, by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue…No man can read any such book…in part or in whole.

Thomas Arundell, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1408

That was the stance of the church in England as the 16th century begins.

The church in England still recognizes Rome as its authority at this point.

That would not change until Henry wants his marriage annulled in 1534.

So in the world that Tyndale grows up in, there is just one church.

And that church claimed that THE language of the Bible is Latin.

That isn’t true. It is Greek/Aramaic in the NT and it is Hebrew in the OT.

Why would the church want the Bible kept in Latin?

Why would they even make it illegal to translate the Bible from Latin into English?

They claimed that it was too difficult to understand so it had to be trained by a priest who knows Latin.

But we know that isn’t true.

While there are hard things in the Bible we may have different interpretations on, the essentials of salvation are quite clear and plain.

So that can’t actually be the answer.

Maybe it was about something a bit more underhanded then?

Maybe it was so that the common people couldn’t read it?

It was about power.

The locked the Bible up so that the Church could carry on with superstition and tradition that was not in the Scriptures.

Much of that tradition and superstition kept people under the power of the Church.

Therefore, they fought hard to keep God’s Word locked up in the linguistic prison of Latin so that no common laborer could ever get their hands on it.

Therefore, if you teach the Bible in English, it is heresy and it is punishable by death.

The least you would get is imprisonment.

To even teach the Bible in England, outside of the authority of the church, was illegal, even if you were using the Latin.

To give you an idea of the no nonsense brutality surrounding these mandates and regulations:

In 1519, seven Lollards—which were followers of John Wycliffe—were burned at the stake just for teaching the Lord’s Prayer to their children in English

That was the crime.

Doing something we do from before our children can speak and we take for granted.

They died for their conviction that their babies should know how to pray in their heart language.

Now, add into that the Reformation fire that is blowing through Europe as Tyndale is moving to Cambridge for his doctoral studies in 1519, somewhere in his mid-20’s.

You have to understand how hot the Protestant fire is starting to burn at this time:

Jan Huss, Prague’s Reformer, is killed for his teachings and his criticism of the Church in 1415.

His name translates to “Goose,” in Czech.

Before he dies, he tells them that they can kill the goose, but in 100 years, a swan will rise up that they cannot silence.

102 years later, Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the door in Wittenburg.

And he came to believe himself to be that swan—1000%.

And the milestone dates of the era tell you just how historic this generation was:

John Knox, the Reformer of Scotland, is born in 1505

John Calvin, the Reformer of Switzerland, is born in 1509

Luther is refusing to recant and questioning the infallibility of the Pope in 1518-1519

Zwingli is launching the Swiss Reformation in 1519

The Anabaptist Movement is rising up in Germany in 1522

Europe and the Church are under theological siege from every angle—and for good reason

And this is the world that William Tyndale is moving around in as he sets foot on the campus of Cambridge to start a doctoral degree he would never finish.

WHITE HORSE INN AND LEAVING EDUCATION

While at Cambridge, Tyndale finds himself gathering on campus at a pub called The White Horse Inn.

He meets there with Robert Barnes and Hugh Latimer.

Miles Coverdale and Thomas Cranmer (yes—that Thomas Cranmer—the future archbishop who is most intimately involved in producing the Book of Common Prayer)

Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Bilney

And these are the men who become the leaders of the Protestant Reformation in England

They were all inspired by what Luther was doing in Germany.

They were wading into Reformation waters together and they were forming convictions that they would be willing to die for

And In 1521, Tyndale steps away from his education because of it

The Reformation is too hot for him to play at the cool game of academics

He has to get closer to the fire.

And for Tyndale, the fire of the Reformation is not Luther or any man, but the Word of God itself.

For despite the state of things in England, by 1521, much of Europe is in love with a Greek translation of the New Testament by a man named Erasmus.

Erasmus publishes his Greek NT in 1516 and this is a landmark moment

Because now, someone like Tyndale can take that Greek NT and translate it into the English language straight from the original language

Tyndale can bypass the Latin and use this Greek tool that was beloved all around the continent

And that is why Tyndale left Cambridge.

He fell in love with Erasmus’ New Testament and the truths he was finding in it

And he fell in love with the idea of Englishmen having their own Bible.

He was convinced it was the only way his countrymen could be saved:

It was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, except the Scripture were laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.

William Tyndale

After leaving Cambridge, Tyndale goes to work for a man named Sir John Walsh and educate his kids

It is only 12 miles from where Tyndale grew up

We are pretty sure that it was all a cover

Tyndale was far too brilliant to be retained simply to tutor children

It is very likely that Tyndale is already studying the Scriptures with an aim toward translation and Walsh is housing him

We do know that Tyndale is also preaching throughout the region during this time and his view do unsettle the leaders in the church, but there’s no formal trouble.

But the real breaking point comes for him at a dinner party.

It is no stretch to say that a mouthy priest at a nobleman’s table set off the chain of events that led to you having your Bible this morning.

Tyndale is eating dinner at the Walsh’s and local priests are the guests for the evening

One of them starts debating Tyndale at the dinner table and it gets heated.

This man says:

We had be better without God’s law than the pope’s.

And Tyndale responds and says:

I defy the pope and all his laws.

And then he alluded to words from the intro to Erasmus’ Greek NT and he said:

If God spared him life, ere many year he would cause a boy that drives a plough to know more of the Scripture than he does (the pope).

From this moment forward, William Tyndale sets his toward the translation of the Bible into English like Paul set his face to go to Rome in Acts.

It was all he cared about.

It was the driving impetus for his life.

Galatians 3:27–28 ESV

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is no hierarchy in the Lord’s baptism waters.

While we all are called to different roles and some of those roles may have different levels of authority, we are all baptized into the ONE body of Jesus Christ

The old earthly titles that divide society and create inequality in the world are not that way in the church because our union with Christ dissolves those categories

Not in the sense that we cease to be male and female or Jew or Greek, but in the sense that those titles now bow down to the title of Christian and so they do not divide us.

And for William Tyndale, this meant that there should be no one in the church should have the Bible locked away from them.

Anyone who is in Christ Jesus should be able to read the Word of their Lord.

TRANSLATION EFFORTS

LEAVING ENGLAND

With this conviction, Tyndale goes to the bishop of London in 1523. His name is Cuthbert Tunstall.

He is impressed by Tyndale, but he says no to Tyndale translating to New Testament into English.

This is no surprise because he is under the authority of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in King Henry’s court.

Wolsey was a bully.

He was politically and religiously powerful

He would never authorize the translation of the Bible into English.

He famously said, “Be very, very careful about what you put into that head of yours because you will never, ever get it out.”

I agree.

Sadly, he believed the Scriptures in English was not something that Englishmen should have in their heads.

He stays in London for about a year with a rich merchant named Henry Monmouth.

Monmouth had Lollard leanings and was an early adopter of Protestant beliefs.

He housed Tyndale as Tyndale continued to study and preach, but eventually it became clear—William Tyndale would have to leave England in order to provide an English Bible for his homeland.

There are two main reasons for this:

First of all—he knows the politics won’t allow it.

Secondly, there are about 1000 printers in Europe at the time and only two of them are in England.

Printing was an arduous process of placing individual letters on little wooden blocks and dipping them in ink and pressing individual words and sentences on to pages.

The two printers in England were famous—unfortunately they were famous for being terrible at their jobs!

Tyndale had a very specific way he will want these Bibles to be made.

He wants his New Testament pocket-sized so the plow-boy could have it in the fields and hide it if the authorities came hunting.

Tyndale wrote and printed books other than the Bible like, The Obedience of the Christian Man, but they were all printed pocket-sized.

These English printers wouldn’t do for work like this.

And so he takes off for Germany in order to undertake the translation of the New Testament from Greek to English and Henry Monmouth’s money is backing him.

God is using Monmouth’s money to change the course of history.

Never underestimate what God might do when you give to His kingdom’s work.

Upon arrival, he goes to the University of Wittenburg and seems to attend some classes taught by a certain German monk who shared a disdain for papal authority—Martin Luther.

ON THE RUN

Tyndale ends up going to Cologne and setting up shop there because he is able to work out a deal with a famous printer named Peter Quentell.

Quentell is not some Protestant pirate printing books by night.

He is a man after profits.

He printed Catholic materials, but had no issue printing an English Bible if he could make money. And he knew he could.

However, one of the printers that worked for Quentell got drunk on wine one night and mouthed off about the work.

A man named John Cochleaus heard it. He despised the Reformation and he organized a raid on the print shop.

Tyndale hears about this and like something out of Indiana Jones, he barrels into the backroom of the shop, gathers up his work and he is heading down the Rhine River to Worms before he can be caught.

THE 1526

Tyndale finishes his translation in 1526.

It is the first English Bible mechanically printed.

It is smuggled into England by Lutheran cloth merchants.

The Christian Brethren, a secret society of English Protestants gets them and 6,000 are distributed throughout England and Scotland.

Old Bishop Tunstall hears of this and he gathers up as many as he can find and arranges a massive burning outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The church is arranging a burning of the Bible.

In 1527, Bishop Tunstall and the archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, cooked up a plan to buy up all the remaining copies of Tyndale’s Bible so that no one could get them.

What they didn’t think about is that all the money spent on the Bibles went back to Tyndale, who then revised his work and put out a second edition with the resources.

Do you love William Tyndale yet?

Tyndale’s opponents claim that his translation has 2000 errors in it.

But they aren’t even judging it correctly because they are comparing his English to the Latin and not the original Greek.

Tyndale said they were so desperate to make a heretic out of him that they would charge him if he forgot to dot an “i.”

The truth is that Tyndale’s 1526 New Testament is one of the most important works in the history of the world.

That is not an overstatement.

It was a towering achievement.

The 1526 New Testament is triumphantly the work of a Greek scholar who knew that language well, of a skilled translator who could draw on the Latin of the Vulgate and Erasmus, and German, for help when needed, but above all of a writer of English who was determined to be clear, however hard the work of being clear might be.

David Daniell

Tyndale improved on the 1526 with revised editions in 1534 and 1535.

He made 4,000 improvements and corrections in these editions

Most of them are very minor and insignificant—unless you are brilliant linguist obsessed with accuracy and clarity

THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Old Testament was the next project in Tyndale’s sights.

The problem is he did not know Hebrew.

And neither did anyone else in England.

So what did he do?

He taught himself Hebrew.

It is amazing that he did this, but it is likely that he had access to great resources when he was in Worms.

It was a center for Jewish Rabbinical learning.

Tyndale is on the move again as he does this work and is chased into Hamburg, Germany.

Lesser men and women would have given up.

You produced a New Testament already...

There is a lot of opposition...

Why not just give up?

But Tyndale does not give up and in 1530, the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, are translated into English and are in circulation.

It is a wonderful copy of Genesis-Deuteronomy, complete with a table of terms from Tyndale where he defines words.

He would define basic terms he felt the believer needed to know.

In this way, Tyndale’s Pentateuch is like a study Bible.

CURSE. God’s curse is the taking away of His benefits; as God cursed the earth, and made it barren. So now hunger, dearth, war, pestilence, and such like, are yet right curses, and signs of the wrath of God to come.

William Tyndale

In all, it is an amazing twelve year stretch.

From 1524 to 1536, William Tyndale is moving heaven and earth to translate God’s work into English and what he accomplishes is immense.

Ecclesiastes 4:4 ESV

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

When your work is only to look better than your neighbor and surpass him—your reward is on earth and it is ultimately a chasing after the wind.

That was not the translation work of William Tyndale.

His toil and skill was driven by a love of His neighbor.

And in that, it was a striving after the glory of Christ.

BETRAYAL AND ARREST

HENRY’S OFFER

In 1531, Tyndale is actually given an invitation to return to England by King Henry VIII.

The love of Henry’s life—at least at the time—got one of Tyndale’s New Testaments in her hands and she was enamored with it.

Henry recognized that the translation was the work of a brilliant man and he makes a request to have Tyndale in his court.

Henry sends Stephen Vaughan to find Tyndale and meet with him.

Tyndale meets with him in a field by night

Tyndale makes it clear that he is loyal to the throne of England and he would love nothing more than to bow the knee before the King

All he requests is that Henry would authorize an English translation of the Bible

Henry is livid at Tyndale’s response and an even stronger ban is issued on Tyndale’s writings.

Things are now more dangerous for him than ever

That is evidenced in the fact that one of his best friends, John Frith, is burned at the stake in 1533 for denying the existence of purgatory and Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation

That is the doctrine that teaches that the elements of the Mass become the literal body and blood of Christ by the Word of Christ and the power of the Spirit

Frith died 490 years ago this Tuesday

Remember this Christian martyr as you celebrate your freedom as an American

MERCHANT’S HOUSE

In 1534, Tyndale moves to Antwerp in Belgium and begins living at an English Merchants House.

The housing itself is like a dorm, but it is protected like an embassy.

It is owned by a man named Thomas Poyntz.

Poyntz is a member of the Worshipful Company of Grocers. A guild of merchants who maintained the purity of spices and scales.

They kept Tyndale safe as he worked tirelessly and complete the 2nd quarter of the Old Testament.

He had already completed the first five books of the Old Testament, as well as Jonah.

While at the merchant’s house, he finishes Joshua-2 Chronicles.

Tyndale’s eyes are on revisions of what he has done and getting all the way to the end of the Old Testament, but there are events underway that he has no way of knowing about.

And yet, those events will lead to his death.

BETRAYAL

Far away from Belgium, back in England, there is a wealthy man named Richard Phillips, who has served in Parliament and been the high sheriff on more than one occasion.

He wants to store his wealth in London.

Not being able to wire money through an app, he sends his son, Henry, to take the money to London.

But Henry Phillips was a scoundrel.

So before he gets to London, he has blown through most of his father’s wealth.

With this family having some clout, word of this gets around.

We don’t know if it was the King or the Bishop of London or everyone—but orders are given to Henry Phillips to go to Antwerp and befriend Tyndale and then turn on him.

Just like Judas.

And if he could deceive Tyndale into friendship and then turn him over to the authorities, they would restore some of his father’s wealth.

And so Phillips goes to Antwerp. He frequents the Merchant’s House and befriends Tyndale.

He takes an interest in Tyndale’s work and offers to help him with it.

And then, one fateful day in 1535, Phillips waits until Thomas Poyntz is out of town and he invites Tyndale to lunch.

Tyndale accepts—something he really should not have done.

As they are going to lunch, soldiers are waiting.

Phillips indicates who William Tyndale is and the authorities arrest him.

The bright, golden lining in around this cloud is that his friend John Rogers was able to go and gather up all of Tyndale’s unpublished work, before the authorities could get to it.

IMPRISONMENT

Tyndale is tossed into prison at Vilvoorde Castle.

It is a brutal time for this wonderful man.

For sixteen months he is in the darkness.

He is cold.

He is without proper clothing.

He asks for socks and clothing.

He asks for a light.

He asks for his books so he can continue his work.

But what he got was repeated visit from Catholic scholars who were walking through his writings and his doctrine and they were trying to get him to recant.

This is not to avoid death. He is going to die for translating the Bible into English.

Instead, this is to save his soul in the afterlife.

But Tyndale, knowing exactly what the original language said about how a soul is saved, is not worried about it.

He stands strong and does not budge.

It is a horrible thing to think about the most brilliant linguist in Europe, and one of the most brilliant people in Europe, sitting in a jail cell for 16 months.

It feels like such a waste.

But in God’s perfect plan, Tyndale was cared for by a jailer and his daughter while in the prison.

During the 16 months that they got to know him, they fell in love with him and fell in love with his Lord.

Tyndale led them them to Christ.

It it reminiscent of the Apostle Paul

Philippians 1:12–13 ESV

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

DEATH

On October 6th, 1536, William Tyndale is taken from his prison cell.

He is removed from the priesthood in a humiliating ceremony

They put priestly robes on him and then strip him of those robes

They scrape his hands with broken glass and scraped his hands

They put the bread and the wine in his hands and then removed the bread and the wine to show that he is no longer a priest

They dress him up like a layperson

He is tied to a stake in the courtyard in the presence of powerful churchmen who are gathering to celebrate the occasion

Since he is such a great scholar, they allow him to be strangled before he is burned.

They place chain around his neck and they strangle the brilliant William Tyndale to death.

His final words are, “God, open the eyes of the King of England.”

After that, they burn his body as a heretic.

And they include gunpowder in the fire so that his body is destroyed and blown up.

Hebrews 11:36–38 ESV

Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

Of whom the world was not worthy...

This was William Tyndale.

THE LEGACY OF TYNDALE

THE MATTHEW BIBLE, THE GREAT BIBLE AND THE KJV

As we close up this morning, I want to talk about the legacy of William Tyndale, because he shapes your life more than you probably realize.

In 1537, John Rogers, the man who saved Tyndale’s work in the arrest, publishes “The Matthew Bible” under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew.

The New Testament was entirely Tyndale’s work

Genesis-2 Chronicles and Jonah were all Tyndale’s work

Rogers also compiled the work of Tyndale’s old friend, Mile Coverdale from the White Horse Inn days.

Coverdale had translated the rest of the Old Testament from Latin and German.

It was not as accurate a translation as Tyndale’s though because it was translated from the Latin and German.

If you had a Matthew Bible and you opened to the end of the Old Testament, you would see the initials “W.T.”

It was a nod from Rogers to his brilliant friend, who had provided the majority of the translation work.

In 1539, just four years after Tyndale’s execution, his prayer was answered.

King Henry’s eyes were opened enough to see the need for the Bible to the translated into English.

The Matthew Bible was used to produce “The Great Bible.”

Therefore, the Bible that King Henry authorizes is mostly William Tyndale’s—the man he fought so hard to silence.

In 1611, when the King James Version is published, 84 percent of the text in the New Testament is William Tyndale’s translation—verbatim.

Meaning—it could not be improved upon.

76% of Genesis-2 Chronicles and Jonah are William Tyndale’s.

Could not be improved upon.

So if you have a King James Bible this morning or you grew up reading one and the KJV shaped your life and your faith, then you should thank William Tyndale when you get to heaven.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

We must talk about how Tyndale has influenced how we talk about faith and how we talk in general.

As Tyndale studied the original languages, he would often realize that we did not have an English word that would fit the Hebrew or the Greek.

So Tyndale would create a new word. Here are some words and terms that simply did not exist prior to William Tyndale’s translation work:

Fig leaves

Birthright

Ingathering

sin offering

morning watch

handbreadth

spoiler

swaddling clothes

slaughter

ministering

Behold

In his wonderful little biography on Tyndale, Steven Lawson says:

In addition, there are numerous words that find their first usage in Tyndale’s New Testament, including: apostleship, brotherly, busybody, castaway, chasten, dividing, fisherman, godly, holy place, intercession, Jehovah, justifier, live, log, mercy seat, Passover, scapegoat, taskmaster, unbeliever, viper and zealous.

Steve Lawson

Even the word Passover, used by Christian Jewish English-speakers alike, did not exist, prior to William Tyndale.

It is hard to even evaluate how big of an impact Tyndale has had on the English-speaking world.

As his translated Scriptures were being published and circulated, what he was doing as codifying and standardizing the English language.

That was not his aim, but he accomplished that.

Without Tyndale’s New Testament it is difficult to imagine William Shakespeare the playwright.

Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespeare historian

Here is just on example that Lawson points out:

In A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Shakespeare writes:

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, not his heart to report, what my dream was.

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare has borrowed from Tyndale’s translation of 1 Corinthians 2:9 in the 1526:

The eye hath not seen, and the ear hath not heard...

If someone wants to claim that Shakespeare is the father of the English language, then you at least have to call Tyndale the grandfather.

He has impacted how we talk. How we read.

How we speak about our Lord.

How we sing—for how many English hymns are written from the King James?

AMERICAN HISTORY

We would also have to say that Tyndale did so much to shape our nation. On this celebratory weekend, William Tyndale’s name deserves mentioning.

Fifty years before the KJV was published, the Geneva Bible was already being used by English-speaking Protestants.

When the King James was published, many Protestants took issue because Roman Catholics had been allowed to influence the work.

They rejected the King’s Bible and they took their Geneva Bible with them as they struck out as pilgrim’s to start a new world here on the shores of America.

When those pilgrims showed up here, Geneva Bible in hand, it was based on the work of Miles Coverdale in part—but mostly, William Tyndale.

That Bible went on to shape so much of who we are as a people.

Our 2nd President said this:

The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy that ever was conceived upon earth.

John Adams

His son, the 6th President, said:

The Bible is of all books in the world that which contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy.

John Quincy Adams

Thomas Jefferson, who was no Christian, said:

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian.

Thomas Jefferson

We might be able to dispute whether or not America began as a “Christian nation,” but what you cannot dispute is that when you look under the hood of America, you will see principles and ideals that find their source in the Bible.

This country that God has given us as a place to lay our heads until we get to our eternal home, is one built on values and virtues that are mined from William Tyndale’s translated Scriptures

Like the rest of the English-speaking world, our nation owes a great debt to the great Tyndale

CONCLUSION

With everything men like Tyndale and all that aided him went through to get us these Scriptures, you would think we would never ignore them.

You would think that once we learn this story—that our English Bible comes to us by blood—we would read it everyday going forward.

But familiarity can cause a terrible erosion in your mind.

You get so used to something you take it for granted and you stop attributing the proper amount of worth to it

That happened in England.

The Christians had been so desperate for an English Bible. They clamored for it.

Surely they would never forget the importance of it!

And yet, probably about 100 years after Tyndale began his work of translation the New Testament, a man named Roaring John Rogers (different John Rogers) is preaching at the church in Dedham.

English Christians are in darkness again. Not because they don’t have a Bible. Not because it was chained up by the church.

But because they were not reading it!

The Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, was in Dedham to hear Rogers because he had gained a reputation for being the most awakening preacher of his time.

Goodwin said that Rogers started by talking to the people like He was God:

The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation Chapter 6

‘Well, I have trusted you so long with my Bible; you have slighted it, it lies in such and such houses all covered with dust and cobwebs; you care not to look into it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer.’

Goodwin said that Rogers picked up his Bible and he acted like he was going to walk off and leave in the middle of the sermon.

But then he came back and fell on his knees and spoke as if he were the church pleading with God:

The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation Chapter 6

‘Lord, whatsoever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible.’

Then Rogers switched back to speaking from God’s perspective:

The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation Chapter 6

‘Say you so? Well, I will try you a little longer; and here is my Bible for you, I will see how you will use it, whether you will love it more, whether you will value it more, whether you will observe it more, whether you will practice it more, and live more according to it.’

Goodwin said that the congregation just sat there crying.

He said he walked out of the church and was going to get on his horse to leave, but he couldn’t.

He was so grieved by his own lovelessness for the Word that he hung on his horse’s neck and cried for 15 minutes before he could mount and ride.

Are we in need of Roaring John Rogers’ sermon?

Are you in need of his sermon?

Do you take your Bible for granted?

Does it gather dust?

Our phones, our televisions

Our Playstations and X-Boxes

Our trucks and cars

Our clothes and closets

These things are dusted. Tended. Used and cleaned and used again.

But what about your Bible?

Is it read or is it looked at with good intentions?

Is it something you need to get to or something you submit to?

There has never been a time in which biblical truth is more easy to access for an English-speaking man or woman.

Every excuse we have for not reading the Word of God is nothing.

It doesn’t work.

It doesn’t hold up.

There is only one move.

Repentance and action.

God, give us the heart of the Psalmist.

Psalm 119:25–32 ESV

My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word! When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes! Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word! Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!

Ask God for the heart of the Psalmist.

The heart of Tyndale.

A heart for His Word.

Only spare us Thy Bible Lord, Only take not Thy Bible.