God’s Word for All

The English Bible we hold in our hands today came at the cost of those who risked and even gave their lives so God’s Word could be read in our own language. Before 1300 A.D., church services in Western Europe were conducted primarily in Latin. Portions of Scripture had been translated into Old English—usually from the Latin Vulgate—but were used mainly for study or devotion by clergy rather than distributed among common people. The only English Bible before William Tyndale was the handwritten manuscript translation of fellow proto-reformer John Wycliffe. In response to Wycliffe’s influence, church authorities at Oxford established regulations requiring any new English translation to receive approval from a bishop or episcopal council, making widespread printing nearly impossible.

William Tyndale (1494–1536), however, was driven by Christ’s command in Mark 16:15 to “preach the Word of God to every creature.” Educated at both Oxford and Cambridge, he became highly skilled in Greek and sought to translate the Scriptures into clear, readable English directly from the original languages. After fleeing opposition in England, he traveled to Germany where he encountered Martin Luther—even utilized some of Luther’s marginal notes in his own NT translation. After his first printing attempt was betrayed to Roman Catholic authorities, Tyndale escaped to the city of Worms, where thousands of copies of his English New Testament were printed and smuggled into England hidden in bales of cloth and other cargo. After completing his NT, he turned his attention to books in the OT from the Hebrew Scriptures. We are uncertain where he learned Hebrew, but he did. In 1534, Tyndale was betrayed again, imprisoned, and condemned for heresy. Even in prison, his passion for Scripture remained unchanged. In a letter he requested “a lamp in the evening and a Hebrew Bible, grammar, and dictionary so he could continue studying”. At his death October 6, 1536, the executioner in an act of mercy strangled Tyndale before lighting him on fire.

Driven by Christ’s command to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” Tyndale labored so that the Word of God would no longer be confined to clergy but made available to the common man. May we humbly thank God for those that came before us who gave their lives, so that we might have His Word in our hands which we so often take for granted.

Keanan Fischer