The Mantle Tyndale Left Behind

In October 1536, William Tyndale was led to a stake outside Brussels, strangled, and burned. His crime was translating the New Testament into English so that, as he once told a clergyman, "the boy that driveth the plough" might know Scripture better than the clergy themselves. His final words were a prayer: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

Tyndale left behind an unfinished Old Testament and a scattered band of collaborators. Among them was Miles Coverdale, a fellow translator who had labored alongside Tyndale in the damp printing houses of Antwerp. Where others might have abandoned the dangerous work, Coverdale picked up what Tyndale left behind. He gathered the translated portions, completed the remaining books, and within a year of Tyndale's execution published the first complete English Bible. More astonishing still, King Henry VIII — the very monarch who had hunted Tyndale — authorized its distribution throughout England. Tyndale's dying prayer was answered through the hands of his successor.

When Elisha watched the whirlwind carry Elijah away, he did not stand paralyzed by grief. He picked up the fallen mantle, struck the Jordan, and cried out, "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" The waters parted. The mission continued. God's work never depends on a single servant. But it does require someone faithful enough to pick up the mantle and keep walking forward.