William Tyndale's Dangerous Devotion to the Word

In 1524, William Tyndale fled England with a single burning conviction: ordinary plowboys deserved to read God's Word in their own language. He settled in hiding across the German countryside, moving between safe houses in Worms, Antwerp, and Hamburg, translating the New Testament from Greek into English by candlelight while agents of the Crown hunted him.

Tyndale's devotion to Scripture was not academic. He memorized vast portions of the Hebrew and Greek texts, carrying them in his mind when he could not carry them on paper. Friends begged him to stop. The work was illegal. The penalty was death. But Tyndale had tasted something in those ancient words that made retreat impossible. "I defy the Pope and all his laws," he declared. "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than thou dost."

For twelve years he labored. In 1536, he was strangled and burned at the stake in Belgium. His final words: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

The psalmist writes, "Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart." Tyndale sought the Almighty with everything he had — his intellect, his safety, his very life — because he understood that God's Word was not merely worth reading. It was worth dying for.