Grace in History
This year marks the five-hundredth anniversary of one of the most important undertakings in church history. In 1524, William Tyndale, exiled from his native England, was being hunted by no less an enemy than the most powerful force in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church. His Crime? The translation of the Bible into English. Throughout much of the Medieval Age, the Holy Scriptures were inaccessible to most people. Illiteracy was nearly universal and what’s more, the Scriptures were almost solely available in Latin. When Jerome of Stridon translated the Scriptures into Latin (the Latin Vulgate) in the 5th century, he had originally intended to make the Bible accessible to the peoples of Western Europe. However, throughout the centuries, complex historical and political circumstances resulted in the Latin Bible’s being the exclusive preserve of the clergy and highly-educated elite.
In the 16th century, as the reformation began to take hold throughout continental Europe and Britain, the centrality and authority of the Scriptures in the Christian life were observed with renewed interest.
It is in this context that William Tyndale began his feat. Though he had originally petitioned the church to translate the Bible into English, his requests were summarily denied. In 1524, Tyndale, gripped by the conviction that the Holy Scriptures were for every man, fled England to Germany where he would secretly begin the revolutionary work of translating the Scriptures directly from Hebrew and Greek into his mother tongue. And a revolution it was. Not only was Tyndale successful in translating the entire Pentateuch, historical Old Testament books, and New Testament, but he also did so in a beautiful and elegant style that has had a massive impact on both subsequent translations and the English language itself. It is from Tyndale’s pen that we get so many of the beautiful turns of phrase and poetic verses that fill our English Bible.
While it is hard to overstate Tyndale’s linguistic and artistic endowments to the English-speaking church, and by extension, the world, one cannot understand Tyndale without sharing in his conviction that the word of the living God should be in every man’s tongue. In conversation with a priest, Tyndale is reported to have exclaimed, “I defy the Pope 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.”
Soon Tyndale would learn the cost of his beliefs. In 1535 Tyndale was captured by the authorities and found guilty. One year later, Tyndale was burned at the stake. To his death, William Tyndale staunchly maintained that all Scripture is “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16).
Grace Rancho, may God help us to adore his word like Tyndale. May we be willing to die for it. Plum the depths of Scripture and find treasures unspeakable. Meditate on the gospel and contemplate the beauty of God’s self-revelation. Hear the prophets speak to us in English. Ponder Christ’s injunctions in our native tongue. Adore the glories of God’s word. As you flip through the pages of your Bible, thank God for his Word, and remember that we have our English Scriptures, in no small part, thanks to the faithful life of William Tyndale.