Reformation - Tyndale

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William Tyndale

Born 1494

Died 1536

But so much happened in these 42 years of his life that we owe a debt of gratitude for, as we will see in these next few moments

In 1522, when Tyndale was 28 years old, he was serving as a tutor ( a teacher to the two children ) in the home of John Walsh who lived in Gloucestershire, England

By the end of his life, he knew 8 different languages, so he was very qualified and quite the learner.

Tyndale spent most of his time in that position studying the Greek New Testament that had been completed by Erasmus in the year 1516.

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This Greek NT was the first printed Greek NT in the history of the world

David Daniell, “This was the first time that the Greek New Testament had been printed. It is no exaggeration to say that it set fire to Europe. Luther [1483-1546] translated it into his famous German version of 1522. In a few years there appeared translations from the Greek into most European vernaculars. They were the true basis of the popular reformation.”

Luther would use this translation to produce the German NT (1522), as would Tyndale (1526) the English NT which we will see.

Most European vernaculars (languages) would get NT translations because of the work of Erasmus (the Roman Catholic)

Tyndale was an ordained Catholic priest at this point in time

And as he read and read this NT, he was discovering that his views were no longer lining up with the Catholic church, and he was on the verge mentally and spiritually of joining the reformation

Which is the truth about God’s Word. It changes people, if they’d read it.

Think of lee stroble, and investigative journalist who set out to disprove Christianity.

He looked at history, science, genetics, human consciousness, looked into Jesus’ life

But ultimately, it was the truth in God’s Word that changed his life.

But back to Tyndale, this was problematic at this point in his life, because he lived and worked in a VERY roman catholic household

And this household would often have other roman catholic scholars and priests over for meals, and Tyndale would talk about what he was reading in Erasmus’ NT.

One night the dinner conversation was becoming heated, and one of these catholic scholars who was at the meal declared this, “We were better be without God’s law than the pope’s.”

Meaning, we are better off with the pope’s laws than with God’s laws

Again, a picture of where the catholic church was spiritually, not good!

Tyndale responds, “I defy the Pope”....uh oh....”and all his laws…If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”

This is on of William Tyndale’s most famous quotes, and a picture of the calling he had on his life.

His goal was to provide a Bible in the common language, so that all mankind, regardless of position, could learn and understand the word of God.

Pretty much, he was becoming a massive pain for John Walsh and was starting to cause quite a scene as a catholic priest claiming justification by faith alone and the authority of Scripture.

Wait a minute

You might be, hopefully you are, remembering that a couple of weeks ago we talked about John Wycliffe, and how he had already translated the Bible into English, and that is true

But, the difference here is the Bible he translated was out of Latin

And remember, Latin is a very hard language to translate, you can’t speak it, so when you translate it, it is hard to understand.

But also, they hand wrote copies of it and many had been confiscated, and they had done so 130 years earlier

So Tyndale, now having access to the Greek NT, wanted to translate it again into a much easier to read and understand version of the Bible.

Pretty much, he was becoming a massive pain for John Walsh, so mu

He understood the need for an understandable NT.

Example: Me and college books

Not buying them and thinking I could get by in a class without them

Then breaking down and buying them just to discover I couldn’t even understand what they were saying!

Now, because of his stance, in 1524, Tyndale went into exile, fled England, and ended up in Worms, Germany

Two years later, in 1526, Tyndale had completed the translation of the NT into English from the Greek text.

1524, went into exile, went into hiding

Printing press had been invented by this point, so he did not have to hand-write the copies like Wycliffe had to

And began to smuggle it into England in bails of cloth

fearful for his life due to his caring about the translation of the Bible

Now, this fact that he smuggled it in bails of cloth is awesome in my mind, because God’s just showing off here:

Tyndale was born in Gloucestershire, England, which was the cloth-working county in England

And they would supply overseas countries with cloth as well, so Tyndale, naturally, had connections with cloth workers and distributors in Germany

Do you see how God used Tyndale’s seemingly insignificant upbringing, connections, and family work to bring about a way for him to smuggle the NT into England, and ultimately bring glory to Himself?

This is just awesome to me!

3,000 copies were smuggled in

Within 6 months the Bible was banned, but it was too late

Tyndale had started to make good on his promise to that Catholic scholar, that the most common of men could now become more learned than the scholars themselves

From 1526 to 1534, Tyndale, intrigued by all of the OT quotes in the New Testament, and unable to look at their context and in the OT because it was written in Hebrew, decided he himself would learn Hebrew

Now, don’t just think this is something that was easily accomplished

It’s thought at this point in history, only a handful of men knew the Hebrew language.

He dedicated these 8 years of his life to the studying of the Hebrew language

And as he learned it, he began to re-translate the NT as he better understood the OT & NT connections and in 1534 published his revised translation

He produced a much more refined NT translation, “the glory of his life’s work”

By 1536, Tyndale, not content to just stop there, he had translated the Pentateuch, Jonah, and the books from Joshua to 2 Chronicles, with the intent to complete the OT translation.....

But he didn’t get that far, because in 1536, he was martyred for what he had done.

He was betrayed by a close friend, Henry Phillips, who was “helping” Tyndale in his OT translations

Came to this small passageway that they could only walk through one in front of the other

Phillips lets him go first and at the end of the passageway are two officers, whom Phillips the whole way through the tunnel points to Tyndale to let them know he was the one.

Spent 18 months in prison, and in August 1536, he was tied to a stake, strangled, and burned by fire.

Remember, it was punishable by death to translate the Bible out of Latin into any other language

It was also punishable by death to possess a copy of the Scriptures

There are accounts of a man in Norwich being burned alive for possessing the Lord’s Prayer in English

Accounts of seven pastors being burned alive for teaching their kids to recite the Lord’s prayer

It wasn’t just Tyndale who suffered for what he had done, as standing for our faith today will rarely only affect us:

Tyndale watched young men burnt alive for reading the NT he had written

Tyndale heard about his closest friend on earth, John Frith burned alive at the age of 28

He was told about Richard Bayfield, the ship captain who smuggled in his NT’s into England being betrayed by a ship hand and burned alive as well

Or John Tewkesbury, who was converted by another of Tyndale’s writings, “Parable of the Wicked Mammon”, as he was whipped and racked till he was lame

What we can learn from Tyndale’s life

Don’t disregard what you are learning now, how your life has panned out, where you live, what your family does, etc

It’s not insignificant…God work’s in amazing ways

Secondly, to stand for the truth of God’s Word will cost us:

It cost Tyndale:

Life in his home country

Family

Friends

Comforts

Worldly peace

His life

Likewise, to stand for God’s truth will possibly cost us these things as well

, “ 26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”

Finally, the truth of God’s Word, the truth of justification by faith alone, will always try to be stifled and muffled so that people won’t hear it:

Sure, we aren’t fighting the battles of having the Bible in the English common language today

But we are, or should be, fighting the battle of people needing to hear it, to read it, and to believe it. And our government and our school systems and our sports stars and our celebrities are going to fight us on it every step of the way

The Word of God is always going to be hated by the world

We see this today

I see it on twitter daily

Trust me when I say this, it won’t be long before we start being attacked as individuals, as churches, for our stance on God’s Word

It won’t be long before our government starts imprisoning us for our beliefs

And let me ask you, when that day comes, is your faith in God going to stand?

Will your fear of those who can kill the body overcome your fear of Him who can kill the soul as Matthew wrote?

Let me challenge you now, to read God’s Word, read through the New Testament, and as you do so, ask yourself, am I willing to be who Jesus says I need to be?

Am I willing to suffer for the cause of Christ

I close with this, a letter written from Tyndale to John Frith before Frith had been executed, and it reads like this:

“Your cause is Christ’s gospel, a light that must be fed with the blood of faith. . . . If when we be buffeted for well-doing, we suffer patiently and endure, that is thankful with God; for to that end we are called. For Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps, who did no sin. Hereby have we perceived love that he laid down his life for us: therefore we ought to be able to lay down our lives for the brethren. . . . Let not your body faint. If the pain be above your strength, remember: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will give it you.” And pray to our Father in that name, and he will ease your pain, or shorten it. . . . Amen.”