Smuggling Bibles into England
There were several cities in Europe where Martin Luther’s teachings had been accepted and Tyndale could work in relative safety, although his exact lodgings were always kept a secret. In Antwerp, he worked day and night on the Bible translation. Two years later, six thousand copies of the English New Testament were produced by printer Peter Schoeffer in Worms, Germany, and smuggled into England and Scotland. What a time of rejoicing for the people who could read English!
This translation was even clearer than Wycliffe’s had been. I believe that they wept as they read the Word of God in their own language! Obviously, the New Testaments were not well received in Tyndale’s home country. Both the king and the church leaders were furious! Palace and church guards were sent out into the cities and villages to confiscate the new Bibles wherever they could find them. Tyndale was openly condemned in London as a heretic. In a somewhat humorous turn of events, a secret supporter of Tyndale, Augustine Packington, overheard Tunstall threatening to buy all of the English Testaments to burn them. Packington offered to find and buy the New Testaments and deliver them directly to Tunstall’s doorstep.
When the Testaments arrived, the bishop paid Packington a high selling price and then threw the books into a raging bonfire. Packington immediately sent all of the money to Tyndale who then printed thousands of copies of a newly revised edition and smuggled those New Testaments back into England! Before long, Tunstall was confronted with his embarrassing mistake. Satan’s fury raged, but Christ’s work continued to move on. For nine years, Tyndale was safely hidden in Antwerp working on the Old Testament translation with the help of a university friend, Myles Coverdale. Tyndale’s translations also included his personal commentaries that pointed out the specific errors of the church doctrines. Those commentaries angered the Catholic Church even more than the event of the translation. In 1530, Tyndale wrote a pamphlet soundly denouncing King Henry VIll’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. Now, Tyndale was accused as a heretic by both the Catholic Church, King Henry the VIll and his newly established Church of England.
The Wiles of the Betrayer
Tyndale was so focused on the Word of God that he was naive to the wickedness of the world. In spite of his gifted intellect, he was a humble and trusting man who had few suspicions about the ongoing plot to destroy him.
Date: 5th October 2024
Martyr: William Tydale
Location: Pakistan
Source: God’s General-The Martyrs
Author: Robert Liardon
Suffering Saturday 111
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