I have been reading so much about missionaries. I can't explain why? I enjoy reading the testimonies of men
who have been transformed and the radical change in their lives because of God and the power of the Gospel. I today I read about William Tyndale (1494-1536) and his soul passion and desire for the Bible to be translated from Hebrew and Greek to English so that every person in England could read it.
King Henry VII wanted Tyndale to come back to England. Thomas Cromwell (the kings advisor) informed William the king had wanted him to return home after hiding on the continent, but William would only return if the King would authorize an English Bible from Greek and Hebrew for the common language of the people. Henry VII refused and William would never return to his homeland.
If the King and the Roman Catholic church would not provide and English bible, Tyndale would and it would eventually cost him his life. In 1526 Tyndale finished the English translation of the Greek new Testament in Germany and he began to SMUGGLE it into England in bales of cloth. For us today it isn't hard to come across a bible in English: Christian Bookstores, Walmart, and even in the night stand of a hotel. I remember as a little girl getting my first bible. My name was engraved on the front cover and it was a precious moments bible, if you don't know what I am talking about Google it. I can remember looking through
the bible and looking at the pictures that illustrated the different bible stories, the pictures were the only thing to really catch my eyes. Do we ever realize and understand the sacrifice that have been made for the gospel to be spread through out the nation? I didn't, I can reflect back on the last
3-4 years of hearing stories of missionaries going to countries and having to share the gospel in secret and even taking a moment in prayer and thanking God that I could come before him in prayer and read his word in public and not have to worry about having to hide my faith or be persecuted. But I never realized the depth of it. William Tyndale gave his whole life to see the bible translatedin to English, and he did it himself.
After Tyndale's translation, there was a spiritual explosion in England and it became known as the Reformation of Faith.The controversy during this time was with the Greek New Testament of Erasmus(the Roman Catholic humanist scholar) which had been printed in 1516.Erasmus was 28 years older than Tyndale, but they both died the same year in 1536. Erasmus was a respected member of the Roman
Catholic Church and Tyndale, martyred by the Catholic church. But why? Both men believe that the bible should be translated into every language. Both were concerned with the corruption and abuses in the Catholic Church and both wrote about Christ and the Christian Life, but the difference was the paradox between dieing to self---human exaltation and self sufficiency. Erasumus and Luther had clashed in the 1520's over the freedom of will. Tyndale was firmly with Luther..
"our will is locked and knit faster
under the will of the devil, than 100,000 chains binding a man to a post"
Human nature is wrapped around evil, we think evil, and our whole being is a controversy to the will of God and because of that we are under eternal damnation by the law (ten commandments). It is
not possible for a natural man to consent to the law. This view of human sinfulness set the bar for people to grasp the glory of God's sovereign grace in the gospel. Erasmus did not see the depth of human condition, there fore did not see the glory and explosion power of the gospel, which is the work of God in the death and resurrection of Christ to save helpless enslaved hell-bound sinners. Erasmus neglected
the gracious blood-bought salvation.
What drove Tyndale to sing "one note" all his life and continue was the conviction that all humans were in bondage to sin, blind, dead, damned, and helpless, and that God had acted in Christ to provide Salvation by grace through faith---which had been missing in the Latin scriptures and the church system. This was why the Bible had to be translated and ultimately this is why Tyndale was martyred. But the question still remains why
was there so much hatred for the bible to be translated into English?
1) A surface reason of why the bible should not be translated was that the English language is rude and unworthy of the exalted language of God's word
2) There would be errors
3) Men would become their own interpreter and many will go astray into heresy and be condemned and it was church tradition that only priests were given
divine grace to understand the scriptures
4) The church realized that they would not be able to sustain certain doctrines biblically because the people would see that they are not in the bible.
5) Church realized that their power and control over the people and even over the state would be lost, especially the priesthood and purgatory and penance.
Tyndales translation basically came down to 5 words.
- Presbuteros-- instead of translating it as priest-- it translated to elder
- Ekklesia--instead of church--it translated to congregation
- Metanoeo--instead of do penance--it translated as repent
- Exomologeo--instead of confess--it translated as admit or acknowledge
- Agape--instead of Charity--it translated to love
The ecclesiastical pillars of priesthood and penance and confession, the pervasive power and control of the church collapsed. England would not be a Catholic nation.
What did it cost William Tyndale? He fled his homeland in 1524 and was burned at the stake in 1536. Twelve years as a fugitive and there is only a small picture of his life
during his 12 years.
"my pains, my poverty...my exile out of my natural country, and bitter of the absence of my friends..my hunger, my thirst..my cold..."
His last words were..."Lord open the King of England's Eyes!"....He was 42 years old, never married, and never buried.
The short little insight on his life, blew my mind. I really don't grasp how much and how far the gospel has made its way and even the power it holds. I am so small and probably not even worth God's time, but yet He still choose me, he chooses me everyday when I wake up. The question is how am I, how are we going to live and count our life as nothing just as Paul says in Phil 3:8. The gospel is a beautiful thing.... that a man can lay his life down for my sake, for me to experience freedom and escape the pits of hell. Tyndale gave up his life so that in 2010 I could know God through his word!
