“I perceived how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.”

My book, Wide as the Waters, continues on from Wycliffe to talk about WIliam Tyndale, who at the risk of his life translated the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament from Greek into English. Henry VIII, who still saw himself as the Defender of the Faith at the time, hounded Tyndale even in the Netherlands and Belgium where he had fled to work and to publish his translation of the Scriptures. He was captured by Henry’s hired agents in 1535, convicted of heresy, and on October 6, 1536 he was burned at the stake. “Before he lost consciousness, he cried with fervent zeal and a loud voice: “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.'”

God answered his prayer in an odd way. By the time Tyndale died, Henry had already broken with the Roman Catholic church over its refusal to grant him a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon. And Tyndale’s most prominent enemy, Sir Thomas More, was condemned for treason and beheaded by Henry in July, 1535 before Tyndale’s death the following year. Henry, although he condemned Tyndale’s translation as heretical, was already in the process of authorizing an official translation of the entire Bible into English. Henry’s translator, Miles Coverdale, was a former associate of Tyndale, and used Tyndale’s translation along with other sources to produce the first complete Bible ever printed in English. In April 1539 a revised version,the Great Bible, was published, and Henry soon issued a royal decree that:

1. The Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments in English were to be taught sentence by sentence on Sundays and holy days throughout the year.
2. At least one sermon on the Gospel was to be preached every quarter.
3. Every parish church in England was to “set up in some convenient place” a copy of the English Bible accessible to all, “the very lively Word of God.”

Copies of the Great Bible were chained to the lecterns in the vestibules of churches throughout England, and crowds of people came to read the Bible in English. If Henry’s eyes weren’t opened, the eyes of many other Englishmen were.

So I’m thanking God today for the courage and scholarship of William Tyndale, the work of Miles Coverdale, and the edicts of Henry VIII, who was used of God whether he knew it or not.

(Information from Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired by Benson Bobrick.)

What saints who have contributed our Christian heritage do you want to thank God for this month? I’m open to suggestions, and I’ll see about writing a tribute to whomever you suggest.