Today on a long drive I worked through a four-part series on the life and martyrdom of William Tyndale. The more I listened, the heavier it got.
Tyndale was hunted, exiled, and betrayed for the “crime” of translating the Bible into English so ordinary people could read it. He was eventually strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. His dying prayer was, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” He never lived to see the English Bible widely available. Yet his work shaped the language of the King James Bible and countless translations that followed.
A few hours later we pulled into a Pilot station. I’ve seen the Bible racks in those stores a hundred times, but after hearing what Tyndale endured, it stopped me cold. There, in a truck stop in America, sat copies of the Word of God that anyone could buy for a few dollars. No stake. No exile. No threat of death. Just a shelf by the coffee and the donuts.
We are still living off the blood and courage of that man. The same Book he died to give us is so common in our culture that it can sit unnoticed next to the jerky and the sunglasses. That should not go unnoticed.
Do not treat lightly what others paid for with their lives. Open it. Read it. Obey it. And do not let the ease of access breed indifference. The English Bible is not an accident of history. It is the fruit of a martyr’s obedience. Honor it.
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