By John Thomas, Mariners Church
I have had the privilege of leading trips to England, walking with others through the story of how we received our English Bible. For many, it’s a story they’ve never been deeply familiar with—nor one they’ve connected to their own appreciation and daily engagement with God’s Word. This powerful story is more than just church history; it's a profound sermon illustration on the value of Scripture.
Yet the story of the English Bible is fraught with struggle and sacrifice. It is written in ashes on the cobblestones of Oxford’s Broad Street, where faithful men were tied to stakes and burned as heretics. It is a story of clandestine translations smuggled across the English Channel in bales of cloth, of Bibles bought up and publicly burned at the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and of courageous scholars and preachers who dared to insist that the Word of God belongs in the hands of the people of God—not locked away in the Latin of the elite, nor wielded as a tool of political control.
The Morning Star: John Wycliffe and the Fight for Biblical Authority
One of the earliest to embody this conviction was Oxford scholar John Wycliffe (c. 1328–1384), remembered as “The Morning Star of the Reformation". Outraged by corruption in the church, Wycliffe contended that no human authority—pope, friar, or cardinal—could stand above the authority of Scripture itself. This was a foundational argument for Sola Scriptura, a principle that would later ignite the Reformation.
He once declared,
“Were there a hundred popes and all the friars turned to cardinals, their opinions in matters of faith should not be accepted except insofar as they are founded on Scripture itself.”
Working with a team of followers, Wycliffe oversaw the first complete Bible in English, translated from the Latin Vulgate and completed in 1382. The established church condemned his efforts, and though Wycliffe died of a stroke in 1384, the opposition to his work did not end there. In 1415, he was posthumously declared a heretic at the Council of Constance. By 1428, his bones were dug up, burned, and his ashes scattered into the River Swift—an attempt to erase his influence.
Yet the Lollards, Wycliffe’s followers, remembered him with this defiant prophecy:
“The Avon to the Severn runs, the Severn to the sea, and Wycliffe’s dust shall be spread abroad, wide as the waters be.”
The Father of the English Bible: William Tyndale's Ultimate Sacrifice
Building on the legacy of John Wycliffe and deeply influenced by the writings of Martin Luther, William Tyndale (1494–1536) made it his life’s mission to translate the Scriptures directly from the original Greek and Hebrew into English. His first New Testament, completed in 1526, was more accurate theologically and, thanks to the printing press, able to reach far more people than Wycliffe’s hand-copied versions. This technological leap was crucial in the mission to democratize biblical literacy.
Alarmed at the spread of Tyndale’s translation, the Bishop of London attempted to halt its influence by purchasing and burning 6,000 smuggled copies on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Yet this act backfired. Public outrage grew at the church’s hostility to the English Bible, and—ironically—the funds from the bishop’s bulk purchase provided the very resources Tyndale needed to finance a revised second edition. What was meant to extinguish the work of God’s Word instead fueled it further.
Later betrayed and captured in Brussels, before being burned at the stake with gunpowder around his neck, Tyndale cried out…
“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”
The Legacy of the Martyrs
From the Oxford Martyrs in 1555 and 1556 (Ridley, Latimer and Thomas Cranmer) to the hundred more, many would follow in the steps of Wycliffe and Tyndale, in paying the ultimate price for their steadfast conviction in the authority and accessibility of God’s Word. For ministry leaders today, this history serves as a solemn reminder of the cost of our convictions. And some 75 years after Tyndale's execution, God did answer his prayer with the release of the first King James bible in 1611, of which between 80-90% is the original work of his translation.
God’s Gift, Our Heritage: Preaching the Value of Scripture Today
Martin Luther once wrote:
“The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me.”
God’s Word is a gift to His people. It is the chosen vehicle by which He reveals His sovereign plan of creating, pursuing, redeeming, and restoring all things unto Himself. But it is also our heritage—purchased at great cost. Wycliffe, Tyndale, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, and countless others laid down their lives so that you and I might hold the Scriptures in our own language, in our own hands. What they longed for, what they died for, is freely available to us.
The danger today is not that Bibles will be burned in our streets but that they will quietly gather dust on our shelves. This is a key challenge for discipleship in the modern church. The greater tragedy than losing a Bible is neglecting the one we already have.
So let us open it. Let us allow it to read us even as we read it.
Let us return again and again to the living Word—not as a relic of history, but as the voice of the living God who speaks, comforts, confronts, and transforms His people.
This is our heritage. This is our joy. And when we open the Bible, we meet with its Author.
From Sacrifice to Scripture: Equip Your Church to Engage
The Bible in their hands is a victory. The Bible in their hearts is the goal.
But for many in your congregation, the biggest barrier is knowing where to start.
Our new Daily Devotion study is the practical next step to help people from good intentions to life-changing transformation.
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