William Tyndale’s Four Convictions

William Tyndale is arguably the single greatest translator of the Bible into the English language. He was educated at Oxford and later on Cambridge, and he had but one passion: to make the scriptures available to the ordinary English-speaking people. By ordinary, we mean anybody who walked the streets of England who wanted to know God's word.

Behind this passion we can identify four convictions that William Tyndale had, which should challenge us to support translation work and ensure our appreciation of the uniqueness of the scriptures. This is a book that God himself inspired and preserved. Like a relay race, the time has come for us to take up the baton. We need to run faithfully.

Tyndale began his work on the English New Testament around 1524. About 6,000 copies were produced and smuggled into England. A lot of them end up being burned, but he was not deterred. He continued and even learned Hebrew in order to provide the Old Testament. By the time that he was strangled and killed, he had reached 2 Chronicles.

What is it that drove a man to give up all the comforts of life, the opportunities of marrying, of raising a family in order to simply do one thing, to translate the Bible into the language of the common man?

Tyndale was convinced that the well-being of the kingdom of God was intricately tied up with the holy scriptures. He once said, “the word of God is the seed out of which the kingdom of God grows.” The moment you realize this, you begin to see that this book is something to treasure. This truth is evident in the famous words of Paul to Timothy when he says, "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17). To borrow Tyndale's own words, the scriptures sprang out of God. Once you realize that, how could you not treasure the scriptures? This fits not just with what Paul wrote to Timothy, but also with what Peter says, "And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention…no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:19, 21) 

It was this precious love for scripture that undergirded Tyndale’s passion for the rest of his life. This passion was built on four convictions that deserve to be examined.

1. Scripture is the Very Words of God 

Tyndale believed in the authority and sufficiency of scripture alone. It is not known when or how he was converted, but he submitted his life to the God of the scriptures and therefore he submitted his life to the scriptures of God. He became an individual that lived a life deliberately obeying what the Bible says, and not only obeying in terms of the general commandments of God, the general principles of God, but it was also in terms of yielding his own giftedness to God and to his cause. He never saw himself as a mere volunteer.

But when a man recognizes that God has peculiarly gifted him in this area more than another, and he has a growing burden to fulfill a specific area, he is not a mere volunteer. He is somebody who is, as it were, a captive of God himself. And that's the way it was with Tyndale. This is not something that he was giving himself to simply because he wanted to help out here and there. It was something that he realized God had placed on his shoulders. He once said, "I completely submit to the author of Scripture and it is my duty to make it accessible to all." 

Now, let's face it, a man like this becomes unstoppable. He is a man under God, and therefore the world can abandon him as it pleases. You'll still find him faithful to his task because he is not doing anybody a favor. As far as he's concerned he is obeying God and God is his final judge. Basically Tyndale was saying, “the spirit of God assures me that when I'm going, there's going to be danger, but I am going.” 

Furthermore, Tyndale famously said that he “never altered one syllable of God's word against my conscience.” He knew he must be faithful and convey it as-is to others. This  is why Tyndale was never satisfied with simply knowing and reading the Latin Vulgate or working with Latin to go into English. He wanted to work from what he knew was the original language so that he does not alter a single syllable when making the English translation available to the people.

2. To Profit the People, the Word must be Heard and Understood

This is true precisely in the same way that instructions from a king or a parent need to be heard and understood. It must be in the language that they understand, a language they live by. It mustn't be in words that don't make sense to them. And in this sense Tyndale was on the same footing as the apostle Paul when he was dealing with the whole question of prophecy and tongues, saying “Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.” (1 Corinthians 14:6–9)

That's exactly what was happening in the churches when the Bible was being read in Latin, which nobody could understand. When he was a tutor, Tyndale grew frustrated because his students could not understand the language in which the scriptures were written. And when a priest told him, "We Had better be without God's laws than the Pope.”We can well understand why Tyndale responded as he did with that real sense of frustration that he had brought him to the point of defiance, responding, "I defy the Pope and all his laws, and if God spares my life ere many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than thou dost." 

But there was another inspiration that drove him, and this was the unsearchable riches of Christ that he found in reading the scriptures himself. He had come to faith in Christ and had genuine excitement concerning this great salvation found in Christ. The more he studied the Bible in the original Greek language, the more he saw what great things God has done. This conviction became more urgent as Tyndale looked around at the people in the pews who are miserably ignorant because they didn’t understand what they heard from the pulpit. That no doubt affected him. It was out of this excitement that he wrote, "God's word is a treasure that should be available to all, not locked away in Latin, so only a few can understand it" or as he put it elsewhere, "God has given his book in a plain and simple manner. Yet men not only nourish errors, but take great pains to keep them and shroud them in cloudy mist."

This love for the church drove Tyndale to proceed with the translation of the Bible. He deliberately wanted to ensure the text was conveyed in which it gripped ordinary readers, rather than in the way we read an academic book, to give them something of a joyful reading.

Although Tyndale was not a missionary in that he didn’t go away to take the word of God to a people away from his own cultural context, this conviction and final outworking of his life is vital for anyone who's going into missions work. We must not assume that because I know English and I understand English, then what I should do is first of all teach English to a people that does not know English and then they will understand their Bibles. No, I must be the one to say, let me cross the barrier. Let me learn their language. Let me immerse myself into that so that I can now translate the Bible into their heart language so that they too can be thrilled with the truths that have satisfied my longing soul. 

3. People Must be Able to Verify Truth by the Light of Scripture

Tyndale believed that the gospel was so important to salvation that individuals must be able to verify things for themselves through their own reading of the scriptures. We have the example of the Bereans where we read that “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11) And the Bible goes on to tell us, “Many of them therefore believed with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.” (Acts 17:12)

Tyndale knew the danger that he would’ve been in, that Luther would've been in, and so many others who might have paid with their own souls in eternity had they not had the opportunity to read the scriptures for themselves. There are many other areas of life where people deceive you, but you can recover afterwards. If you blindly believe false teaching about the way of salvation and you die and finally appear before almighty God, there won't be a second chance. You won't go back to earth, start all over again and then this time make the right decision. Therefore it is crucial, especially with respect to salvation, that you get to this book, the word of God, God's own communication, so that you may know what He has said about sinners being reconciled to Him. 

Now, some people will object and argue that's what the argument was in those days from the church and its leaders, and this was a fact of life for common people. How can they understand the scriptures? They are unlearned, untutored. But look at the way Tyndale answered. He said, "Do you know who taught the Eagles to find their prey?" That's the question he asked. And then he answered, "That same God teaches his hungry children to find their father in his word." In other words, God is not waiting at the finishing line for history to resolve itself. No, he has got his elect people in the world. He brings them to himself through the scriptures. He is there to reveal himself to them. He is there to regenerate their souls. He is there, but they need the Bible in their own language. That's the point he was making.

Tyndale was not suggesting that there should be no pastors or teachers in the church, as some people wrongly interpret the new covenant. In fact, he wrote on one occasion, "we do not wish to abolish teaching and to make every man his own master. But if the curates will not teach the gospel, the layman must have the scripture and read it for himself, taking God for his teacher." This way they're not at the mercy of deluded teachers. And with respect to this aspect of salvation through Christ, he encouraged those who would be reading the scriptures this way, "be cold, sober wise, circumspect, keep yourself law by the ground avoiding high questions. Expound the law truly and open the veil of Moses to condemn all flesh and prove all men sinners and set at broach the mercy of our Lord Jesus." And then he ends by saying, "and let wounded consciences drink of him."

Reading the scriptures only makes healthier believers. So, ensure that God's people have the Bible in a language they can understand, the Bible in a language they can read.

4. God’s Word is the Ultimate Authority

While Tyndale was translating the Bible into English, he also engaged in polemical writings addressing some of the wrong teachings and practices of the church. He was doing so on the basis that he was finding consistently taught in the Bible truths that the church was contradicting. Therefore it wasn't enough to simply sit in a corner, translate the Bible and send it back to England. He needed to write on those same issues. After all, he has been seeing God's own truth staring at him in the face. And so this is something that caused Tyndale to come up with a further conviction: biblical authority was over and above church authority and where the two contradict each other, the Bible comes up on top.

Tyndale wrote, "Do not believe anything you hear unless it agrees with holy scripture." And then even further, he went on to say, “the authority of the pope of bishops of councils and everything in the church ought to rest on scripture alone, which is the word of God.” That's what cost him his life. He was not willing to bury the Bible because the church said it was unlawful to translate it into the common man. The gospel was at stake, and therefore he was willing to die for it. Isn't that really the same position that Paul was in when writing the Galatians about justification by faith? "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8). We also see this when Paul challenged his fellow apostle Peter where he says, "But When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.” And then later, "But When I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘if you though a Jew live like a Gentile, not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’" (Galatians 2:14). In other words, what we have learned through this book must stand above mere human teachers. The authority here is the ultimate authority. God has spoken.

With these four convictions, it should not surprise us that Tyndale lost his life. Those convictions were too much for the leaders of the church in his day to handle. But those four convictions should be our convictions as well. The well-being of the Christian Church, not only in our generation, but also in the generations to come, hangs on these biblical convictions. May we be individuals who will do anything and everything we can to make sure that the Bible is accessible by all the peoples of the earth. Most likely nobody will put a bullet through your brain today, at least on this side of the Atlantic, but there will be people, groups where you'll be endangering your life and well-being. 

God has spoken, and our role is to convey it to those who don't have it, that they too might find the unsearchable riches of Christ.

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