Why the Martyrs Still Matter
Part 21 — George Wishart: The Preacher Who Walked Toward the Fire
Part of an ongoing 52-week Thursday noon essay series exploring the lives, deaths, convictions, and witness of Christian martyrs throughout church history.
Patrick Hamilton’s smoke had barely cleared from Scotland before another voice began preaching the same gospel.
His name was George Wishart.
And Scotland’s authorities would eventually answer him the same way.
With fire.
Wishart was born around 1513 in Scotland and became a teacher and preacher during one of the most dangerous periods of the Scottish Reformation.
He was educated, thoughtful, and deeply influenced by the Protestant Reformation spreading across Europe.
But Wishart was not content merely to study Reformation theology.
He preached it.
From town to town.
From congregation to congregation.
Wherever people would listen.
He proclaimed justification by faith.
He proclaimed the authority of Scripture.
He proclaimed Christ as the sufficient Savior of sinners.
And crowds gathered.
That made him dangerous.
Cardinal David Beaton, the powerful Archbishop of St. Andrews, regarded Protestant preaching as both theological rebellion and a threat to the established order.
Wishart knew the danger.
He preached anyway.
One of the young men drawn to Wishart’s preaching was a former priest named John Knox.
Knox became so devoted to Wishart that he reportedly accompanied him carrying a two-handed sword for protection.
That image seems almost strange now.
John Knox—the future thunderous voice of the Scottish Reformation—walking beside George Wishart as his armed bodyguard.
But Wishart knew his ministry was becoming increasingly dangerous.
Eventually the moment came.
In December 1545, after preaching at Haddington, Wishart prepared to leave.
Knox intended to accompany him.
Wishart stopped him.
According to tradition, he told Knox:
“One is sufficient for one sacrifice.”
Knox returned home.
Wishart continued alone.
That night he was arrested.
He was eventually taken to St. Andrews and imprisoned in the castle controlled by Cardinal Beaton.
His trial was brief.
The conclusion was never seriously in doubt.
Wishart was accused of heresy for teachings associated with the Protestant Reformation.
He defended himself from Scripture.
It did not matter.
The sentence was death.
On March 1, 1546, George Wishart was brought outside St. Andrews Castle.
Cardinal Beaton watched the execution from the castle.
The preparations were deliberate.
Gunpowder was reportedly fastened around Wishart’s body.
A rope was placed around his neck.
He was chained to the stake.
Wood was stacked around him.
Before the flames rose, Wishart addressed those gathered.
He urged them not to fear those who could kill the body.
He asked them to remain faithful to the truth of God.
Then the execution began.
The gunpowder exploded.
The fire rose.
When the flames did not immediately kill him, the rope around his neck was tightened.
George Wishart was strangled while the fire consumed his body.
He was approximately thirty-three years old.
The authorities had silenced another preacher.
Or so they believed.
Only months later, Cardinal Beaton himself would be assassinated by Protestant conspirators, an act that Wishart neither ordered nor lived to see.
But far more consequential than Beaton’s death was the man Wishart had sent home that December night.
John Knox lived.
And Knox would become one of the most consequential voices in Scottish history.
Wishart never saw the Scottish Reformation triumph.
He never saw Knox preach before kings and queens.
He never saw Scotland formally embrace the Reformed faith.
He died before the harvest.
But he helped plant the field.
There is something deeply humbling about that.
We like stories in which the faithful servant lives long enough to see the victory.
Scripture gives us many stories where he does not.
Moses saw the Promised Land from a mountain but never entered it.
David gathered materials for a temple he would never build.
The prophets spoke of a Messiah they would never see with their earthly eyes.
Stephen died while the man who would become the apostle Paul stood nearby approving his execution.
George Wishart died while the man who would become John Knox was still largely unknown.
God does not require His servants to see the harvest.
Only to be faithful with the seed.
That should free us from our obsession with immediate results.
Perhaps the conversation you have today will bear fruit decades from now.
Perhaps the child you teach will carry the gospel farther than you ever could.
Perhaps the sermon that seems forgotten will lodge inside one heart God intends to use mightily.
We do not know.
Wishart did not know.
He only knew that Christ was worthy of proclamation.
So he preached.
When threatened, he preached.
When hunted, he preached.
When arrested, he confessed.
And when the fire was prepared, he did not deny the Savior who had called him.
The flames at St. Andrews have been cold for centuries.
But Scotland remembers George Wishart.
And perhaps one of the greatest monuments to his ministry is not made of stone at all.
It is found in the life of the young man he sent home.
Wishart went to the stake.
Knox went on to preach.
And God used both.
Soli Deo Gloria
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