Series - Ref500

Tyndale wrote a letter from his prison cell. Originally written in Latin, it is reminiscent of Paul’s last communication in his second epistle to Timothy.

All the signs of trouble were there. How did Tyndale miss them? Perhaps he was too hopeful. Perhaps he was tired of having his guard up, and wanted to believe that Phillips really was a genuine friend.

Tyndale’s monumental publication of the New Testament in English, 500 years ago in 1526, was accomplished through its printing in Worms, Germany. That was the beginning of the real persecution of Tyndale.

So many words that are simply second nature to us as English Bible readers spring from Tyndale’s pen. He forever altered our spiritual and theological vocabulary.

Tyndale continued to face tremendous opposition from his homeland. It came in the form of voluminous writing against him by Sir Thomas More, and also through Cardinal Thomas Wolsley’s act of declaring him a heretic in 1529.

Historians’ best guess is that William Tyndale was born in 1494—11 years after Martin Luther—making him a mere 42 years old when he was martyred on Oct. 6, 1536.

Tyndale, lived and died—and surrendered his life—for the cause of translating the Bible into the English language. As Martin Luther had done for Germany, Tyndale also virtually created a unified language for his country in the process.

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Author’s Note: The following account is fictional, but based on a composite of numerous historical facts. It serves as the backdrop to my forthcoming series in honor of the 500^th anniversary of William Tyndale’s translation and publication of the New Testament in English. I hope you enjoy this letter, written to you today from a 16^th-century plowboy.

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I love studying the Reformation at this season of the year. I am invigorated by listening to lectures about it on sunny, summer walks, thinking about the coming fall, which points toward another Reformation Day.

Recently my mind was drawn back to the Wartburg Castle, and I thought of Luther spending nearly a year in hiding there from May of 1521 to March of 1522, following his victorious stand at the Diet of Worms. I wonder if, while he was enduring such a trial, he ever considered his stay to be a waste of precious time.

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I must confess, I have never seen anything like the intensity shown for Halloween this year—in stores, around homes and now, of course, in advertisements for the most frightening movies imaginable. It began in earnest by midsummer, which made me wonder if it could really last all the way to October 31! But it surely has, demonstrating the grip that the fascination and “fear of death” (Heb. 2:15) has upon so many in our culture.