John F. MacArthur Jr. Quote
I’ve read and reread William Tyndale, David Daniells’s substantial biography. Thomas More was a great defender of Roman Catholicism in England, and he felt himself the servant of God in taking on William Tyndale and doing everything he could to destroy his work. Tyndale did what More thought was an absolutely horrible thing: he translated the Bible into a language people could read, in defiance of the Catholic hierarchy of the time. They were afraid the church would lose its influence if any common person off the street, and not just the official interpreters of the church who knew Latin, could read and understand the Bible. More’s contemporaries relentlessly persecuted him, forcing him to live in exile with the knowledge that if he went back to England, his enemies would kill him, as they were killing the people who read his New Testament. Eventually they hunted him down, then imprisoned and executed him in France. His crime? Translating the Bible into English.
I’ve read and reread William Tyndale, David Daniells’s substantial biography. Thomas More was a great defender of Roman Catholicism in England, and he felt himself the servant of God in taking on William Tyndale and doing everything he could to destroy his work. Tyndale did what More thought was an absolutely horrible thing: he translated the Bible into a language people could read, in defiance of the Catholic hierarchy of the time. They were afraid the church would lose its influence if any common person off the street, and not just the official interpreters of the church who knew Latin, could read and understand the Bible. More’s contemporaries relentlessly persecuted him, forcing him to live in exile with the knowledge that if he went back to England, his enemies would kill him, as they were killing the people who read his New Testament. Eventually they hunted him down, then imprisoned and executed him in France. His crime? Translating the Bible into English.