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Why the Martyrs Still Matter

Part 17 — William Tyndale: The Man Who Gave England the Bible

Part of an ongoing 52-week Thursday noon essay series exploring the lives, deaths, convictions, and witness of Christian martyrs throughout church history.

Some men die defending a book.

William Tyndale died so ordinary people could read one.

Not just any book.

The Word of God.

Today, an English Bible can be purchased almost anywhere. It sits on nightstands, fills church pews, appears on our phones, and can be read instantly in dozens of translations.

We have such extraordinary access to Scripture that we can easily forget there was a time when possessing the Bible in the language of ordinary Englishmen could place a person in terrible danger.

William Tyndale believed that needed to change.

And he was willing to die to change it.

Born sometime around 1494 in Gloucestershire, England, Tyndale was a gifted scholar. He studied at Oxford and later Cambridge and became proficient in languages, including Greek and Hebrew.

But scholarship alone does not explain Tyndale.

He possessed a conviction.

God had spoken.

And God’s people should be able to hear Him.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Bible used officially in the Western Church was the Latin Vulgate. English translations had existed before Tyndale, most notably those associated with John Wycliffe and his followers, but they were based largely upon the Latin text and circulated under severe ecclesiastical restriction.

Tyndale envisioned something different.

He wanted to translate the Scriptures into clear, readable English directly from the biblical languages.

He wanted the farmer to read Romans.

The merchant to read John.

The mother to read the Psalms.

The child to hear the words of Christ.

And according to a famous account, when a learned clergyman argued with him about the authority of the Church, Tyndale responded with words that captured his life’s mission:

“If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”

That was not merely a clever reply.

It became his life’s work.

Tyndale sought official permission to translate the Bible into English.

Permission was denied.

So he left England.

What followed was a life lived almost entirely in exile.

Moving from city to city across Europe, often under assumed circumstances and surrounded by danger, Tyndale translated, revised, printed, and distributed the Scriptures.

In 1526, copies of his English New Testament began entering England.

They were smuggled into the country in barrels, bales of cloth, sacks of grain, and whatever other hiding places merchants could devise.

Church authorities tried desperately to stop them.

Copies were confiscated.

Bibles were publicly burned.

People associated with their distribution were investigated.

But something remarkable happened.

The more authorities tried to destroy the English New Testament, the more copies appeared.

At one point, opponents purchased large quantities of Tyndale’s Testaments in order to burn them.

The money ultimately helped finance further editions.

The attempt to extinguish Scripture helped pay for more Scripture.

Providence has a sense of irony.

Tyndale continued working.

He translated portions of the Old Testament from Hebrew.

He revised his New Testament.

He wrote theological works defending the doctrines of the Reformation.

And all the while, authorities searched for him.

Eventually they found the weakness they needed.

Not in Tyndale.

In someone he trusted.

In 1535, a man named Henry Phillips gained Tyndale’s confidence while he was living near Antwerp.

Phillips presented himself as a friend.

He ate with Tyndale.

Talked with him.

Walked with him.

Then he betrayed him.

Authorities arrested Tyndale and imprisoned him in Vilvoorde Castle near Brussels.

There he remained for more than a year.

The translator who had spent his life placing God’s Word into the hands of others now sat behind stone walls.

One surviving letter from his imprisonment gives us a haunting glimpse into those final months. Tyndale asked for warmer clothing, a woolen shirt, a cap, and above all his Hebrew Bible, grammar, and dictionary so that he might continue studying.

Think about that.

He was awaiting death.

And he wanted his Hebrew Bible.

The work mattered because the Word mattered.

In 1536, Tyndale was condemned as a heretic.

He was led from prison to the place of execution.

There was no rescue.

No last-minute pardon.

No escape from the authorities who had pursued him across Europe.

He was tied to a stake.

Before his body was burned, the executioner strangled him.

Then the fire was lit.

William Tyndale’s body was consumed by the flames.

He was approximately forty-two years old.

Tradition records that his final prayer was:

“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

And then Tyndale died.

But his prayer did not.

Within only a few years, English Bibles were being placed in churches throughout England with royal approval.

Even more remarkable, much of the language in those Bibles came directly from the man England had hunted, condemned, strangled, and burned.

Tyndale’s influence became enormous.

His phrasing flowed into later English Bibles, especially the King James Version.

Expressions familiar to generations of English-speaking Christians bear the imprint of his translation work.

“Let there be light.”

“The powers that be.”

“Fight the good fight.”

“The spirit is willing.”

“A law unto themselves.”

“My brother’s keeper.”

The authorities killed the translator.

They could not kill the translation.

And herein lies the great lesson of William Tyndale.

We possess casually what previous generations obtained at enormous cost.

We own Bibles we rarely open.

We download translations we rarely read.

We have access to more biblical scholarship than nearly any generation in Christian history, yet biblical literacy continues to decline.

That should trouble us.

Men were imprisoned so we could read Scripture.

Men were hunted so we could read Scripture.

Men were strangled and burned so we could read Scripture.

Not because the physical book itself is an idol.

But because within its pages God has revealed Himself.

Tyndale understood what many modern Christians have forgotten.

The Church does not live by cultural influence.

It does not live by political power.

It does not live by entertainment, charisma, programs, personalities, or trends.

It lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

That is why tyrants have always feared the Bible.

Scripture places every earthly authority beneath a higher throne.

It tells kings they are not sovereign.

It tells churches they do not own the truth.

It tells sinners they cannot save themselves.

It tells the frightened that Christ reigns.

And it tells every generation that heaven and earth will pass away, but the words of Christ will never pass away.

William Tyndale understood that.

So he translated.

He ran.

He hid.

He printed.

He smuggled.

He endured.

And eventually, he died.

Five centuries later, most of us can reach for an English Bible without leaving our chair.

Perhaps the best way to honor men like Tyndale is not merely to remember that they died.

It is to open the Book they died to give us.

The ropes around Tyndale’s neck are gone.

The stake has disappeared.

The flames at Vilvoorde have been cold for centuries.

But the Word remains.

The boy behind the plough can read it.

So can we.

May God forgive us if we possess at arm’s reach what Tyndale purchased with his blood…

And cannot be bothered to read it.

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Soli Deo Gloria