Into this world came a man driven by passion: a desire for learning, a longing for the Word of God and a yearning to share that Word with others. This compelling force led him to burst out one day to a clergyman whom he considered a disgrace to the cloth: “If God spare my life, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of Scripture than thou dost.” So he did.
William Tyndale was not the first translator of the Bible into English – Wycliffe had already produced an English version of a large part of both Old and New Testaments. Yet Tyndale’s translation was influential far beyond his predecessor’s. To some degree this was the consequence of being in the right place at the right time: the Protestant Reformation was sweeping Europe, undermining traditional church hierarchies and emphasising the right of every man to examine the Bible for himself. To some extent it was the result of new technology: the invention of the printing press meant that large numbers of Bibles could be printed on the continent and smuggled into England. To some extent it was the result of changes in the language that were already rendering Wycliffe’s version unintelligible. Yet Tyndale also deserves credit for his courage and self-sacrifice, his diligence and scholarship, perhaps above all for his economy and elegance of expression. Like King Solomon, he “searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true” (Proverbs 12:10).
So accurate and felicitous was the result that the Authorised Version produced in the reign of King James I (1603-1625) was in overwhelming proportion based on Tyndale’s work. Many phrases that have passed from the Bible into common usage are pure Tyndale. Together with the works of William Shakespeare and the Book of Common Prayer, he has been one of the central influences on the formation of modern English.
For his pains, this scholar of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic was forced to flee his own country and to live in hiding overseas. There he adopted various disguises and aliases, rightly fearful that agents of the English king were in search of him. Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) had earlier been awarded the title Defender of the Faith[29] by the Pope for authoring a pamphlet defending traditional orthodoxy and had no desire to let writings that were banned by the church into his realm. Indeed, Sir Thomas More (who became Henry’s Lord Chancellor – or chief minister – following the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529) seems to have developed something of a fixation with Tyndale and pursued him unremittingly.
Words.
St Paul encourages his readers to pursue spiritual gifts unremittingly, and these form the subject of chapters 12-14 of his first letter to the early church in Corinth. One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is his Word in the Bible. St Paul says elsewhere that: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16). Little wonder that when English language Bibles first became widely available, there was a tremendous clamour for them as people yearned to be able to read God’s Word for themselves.
The ability to communicate through language is one of the things that set man apart from animals. Once, “the whole world had one language and a common speech.” (Genesis 11:1). Since the days of the Tower of Babel, however, there have been myriad languages, for “The LORD said ... ‘Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand one another.’” (Genesis 11:6-7). The result is miscommunication and lack of communication, but this gulf was bridged in miraculous fashion at the first Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came on Jesus’ followers at that time, “a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.” (Acts 2:7). They exclaimed: “we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:11). It is scarcely straining sense to draw a comparison with the appearance of English language Bibles in large numbers. For the first time most Englishmen were able to read and hear “the wonders of God” (Acts 2:11) in the vernacular.
Our ability to give utterance to thought does not exist merely to enable communication between human beings. It exists also to enable communication between man and God. In the same way that free communication between different linguistic groups has been hindered and disrupted as a result of our sinfulness, so has our communication with God. The gift of tongues (the ability to speak in languages that we have not learned or in non-human languages) exists in part to aid this. St Paul says that when someone speaks in tongues, it is our spirit which communicates with God: “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays” (1 Corinthians 14:14). The result is that “anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God ... [and] edifies himself.” (1 Corinthians 14:2 and 4).
St Paul encourages his readers that they should “eagerly desire spiritual gifts” (1 Corinthians 14:1). However, he makes it clear that these gifts are a means to an end rather than the end itself. He presages his exhortation with the instruction: “Follow the way of love” (1 Corinthians 14:1).
Attitudes.
Our speech, thoughts and actions should all be governed by love. The manner of our communication matters, as does the motive for our action. It is not just a question of what we do or the words that we speak, but also of what is in our hearts. Without love, all else is worthless: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Even the most spectacular manifestations of spiritual gifts are nothing unless they are motivated by love. This should hardly surprise us, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
The love that St Paul talks of is the same kind of love that Jesus speaks about when he tells us to “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Luke 10:27). Love in this sense is not what we often tend to mean when we use this word in English. In our highly sexualised society, words such as love and passion tend to have an overlay of romantic connotation. We are not helped by the fact that in this instance (unusually for a tongue normally so rich in nuance) English has only one word to convey many different shades of meaning.
By contrast, Greek (in which St Paul’s letters are written) has various words to distinguish different kinds of love: thus eros for sexual love and philia for friendly love, affection and friendship. The word that St Paul uses is agape, which conveys selfless concern for the welfare of others: brotherly love or charity, the love of God for man and of man for God. From a human point of view, the person loved in this way may not be very lovable. The important distinction between agape and other kinds of love is that it is a product of the will: it results from a decision to love in obedience to the Lord’s command. Christian love is based not on warm feelings but on God’s love in action, on an attitude of mind rather than on the vagaries of emotion. The passion that should drive us is the same compelling force that drove Tyndale – not a worldly thing, but a godly.
The characteristics of this kind of love are described as follows: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). These echo the fruits of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22). The passion that Christian love involves and evokes is the very opposite of the passions engendered by our earthly appetites. Those things, indeed, give rise to “The acts of the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:19).
This agape is the “love [that] never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:8). It is the thing of which St Paul writes: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 C
orinthians 13:13).
Deeds.
If we are to practise this love and to project it throughout our nation, passion must be balanced with restraint, patience and self-control. This has a number of aspects. We must recognise that our lives on earth necessarily involve:
• Impermanence: “But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” (1 Corinthians 13:8).
• Limitation: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” (1 Corinthians 13:9-10).
• Immaturity: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11).
• Obscurity: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
• Incompleteness: “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
The consequence is that we need faith to make good the deficiency. Through faith we lean on the rock of God’s unchanging nature, access the Lord’s insight, supplant our foolishness with his wisdom, gain glimpses of his vision and tap into his knowledge. If we do these things, we will overcome our limitations and immaturity, we will be able to see beyond and through the things of this world, we will build a lasting treasure on sure foundations and we will take part in the process whereby God brings all things to completeness.
There is no telling what God has in store for each one of us here on earth. We seldom see more than a few steps ahead, nor do we fully grasp the meaning of what we are involved in day to day. For some there are tasks monumental and epic, like those of Tyndale. For most, the daily round is rather more mundane. Yet if we truly bring to bear agape love in all that we think and do, people cannot fail to be affected and the world cannot fail to be changed. This land has become a temple to self-interest, self-promotion, self-regard and self indulgence. The result is rottenness at the core of our society and in our very hearts. The antidote is agape. We need to apply the antidote swiftly and in large doses.
Conclusion.
The date of Tyndale’s birth is uncertain[30] and much detail of his life obscure, the result of his living under assumed names and in disguise in Europe during his time as translator of the Bible and writer of Protestant tracts. The time and manner of his death, however, are well documented. He was strangled and burnt at the stake as a heretic in Brussels in 1536, having been tracked down and entrapped by an agent probably sent by Sir Thomas More, then handed to the local authorities for sentencing and execution. He refused to save himself by abjuring his life’s work and went bravely to his death. As flames licked about him, he cried, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.”
In pursuit of his life’s work Tyndale gave up everything: friends, home, wife, family, country, security and eventually his life. He did it because he was consumed by passion. The effort was not wasted and his final prayer was answered. Just one year after his death a complete English language Bible, two thirds translated by Tyndale and the remainder by his associate Miles de Coverdale, was published by royal permission. It was put on display in St Paul’s cathedral and a spontaneous public reading of the entire text soon began. To this day, the Church of England is required by law to keep a complete, accessible Bible in all its places of worship.
Today, it is not merely the eyes of a king and his ministers that need to be opened, but the eyes of an entire nation. We need to feel the same desire that our forebears had for the Word of God. We need to recover some of the same passion that drove William Tyndale. We need to experience the same love that inspired St Paul. If we will only allow a little of this same zeal to fire us, we will be astounded at the result. Our land needs to be set ablaze again with passion, a passion the source and object of which is God himself.
14. Martyrs
Hebrews 10:32-39.
Key word: confidence.
William Tyndale’s death was just the start. During the reign of Queen Mary (1553-1558) nearly three hundred Protestants were burnt at the stake for their faith. Amongst the martyrs were Archbishop Cranmer and Bishops Hooper, Ridley and Latimer. The last words of the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Bishop of Worcester in particular have resonated down the centuries. Together, they found a degree of resolve and confidence that made a deep impression on all who heard them.
Latimer, burnt alongside Ridley at Oxford in 1555, called out to his friend as the flames licked about him: “Courage, Master Ridley. With God’s good grace we shall this day light such a fire in England as shall never be put out.”[31] A year later Cranmer, author of the greater part of the Book of Common Prayer and thus instrumental in establishing the Calvinist orthodoxy of the Church of England, who had earlier recanted of Protestantism and then thought better of it, held his right arm to the flames and said: “For as much as my hand hath sinned, by writing contrary to my heart, it shall be the first to burn.”
The queen who had these men put to death, devout and sincere as she undoubtedly was, is the Bloody Mary of infamy. When she died childless after a reign of six years, the popular support that had accompanied her accession and enabled her to weather the usurpation of Lady Jane Grey had evaporated. Her passing was unlamented, her only lasting legacy the loss of England’s last piece of territory in France. She said that she died “with Calais engraved on my heart.”
Standing our ground.
The words addressed to early Jewish Christians by the writer of the book of Hebrews apply equally to the Protestants martyrs of Queen Mary’s day: “Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathised with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.” (Hebrews 10:32-34).
These words should resonate with us just as did those of Latimer and Cranmer amongst previous generations. We, too, should remember “those earlier days after [this nation] had received the light,” for our forefathers are amongst those who “stood [their] ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.” (Hebrews 10:32). If they could do it, so can we. The book of Hebrews tells us how. It tells us how to respond to attack, how to deflect blows and how to build confidence.
• Responding to attack: when “publicly exposed to insult and persecution” (Hebrews 10:33), we should not be blown off course and neither should we respond in like manner. Our duty then is not to give way but to stay put: to stand our ground and to stand “side by side with those who [are] so treated.” (Hebrews 10:33).
• Deflecting blows: the harm that others seek to do us will be robbed of its power if we give each other help and support and if we put material possessions in their proper place. If we are able to “[sympathise] with those in prison and joyfully [accept] the confiscation of [our] property” (Hebrews 10:34) much of the hold that others have over us will simply evaporate.
• Building confidence: our trust and confidence in God will increase if we put our faith into practice, for in this way we will come to “[know] that [we ourselves] have better and lasting possessions.” (Hebrews 10:34). Once we gain that perspective, then like St Paul we will “consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ [our] Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. [We will] consider them rubbish, that [we] may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:8-9).
The writer of Hebrews draws a contrast between the things of this world and the things of heaven. On one side stands “suffering ... insult and persecution ... prison ... confiscation of your property” (Hebrews 10:32-33). On the other stands sympathy, joy, “better and lasting possessions” (Hebrews 10:34), rich reward and the promises of God.
The advice given to the readers of Hebrews holds true for us as well: “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:35-36). Over recent decades, this nation has progressively thrown away her confidence and dismantled the solid platform upon which she had built. We have thrown away the ultimate ground for all confidence – trust in God – and in doing so we have lost confidence in everything else. We no longer seem to have confidence that ours is a society worth fighting for. Neither do we seem to have confidence that, for all its manifest faults, this society remains one of the best in the world, where there is a greater chance of happiness and fulfilment than in most parts of the globe, where decent values continue to be upheld and where corruption both personal and corporate is less firmly rooted than in most countries. These are things on which our forebears once stood their ground. They cannot continue to be things that distinguish the life of this nation unless we do likewise.
A great contest.
We are engaged in a great contest no less than were former generations. The writer of Hebrews speaks of “a great contest in the face of suffering” (Hebrews 10:32). In this land we do not currently face outright persecution in the sense that we are the victims of physical violence, but there is an intellectual climate that is distinctly hostile and a determined attempt to erode the Christian fabric of the nation by removing its underpinnings from all walks of life. For a large proportion of Christians overseas, however, the picture is very different. Many labour under persecutions that range from relatively minor administrative inconvenience to direct attack. Each day increases the number of martyrs. We have signally failed in our duty so stand “side by side with those who [are] so treated.” (Hebrews 10:33). We need to be far more active and vocal in our support of the persecuted church worldwide.
Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching) Page 10