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The Incredible William Tyndale

September 06, 2026 0 0

 

The Incredible William Tyndale

 

The Bible is not a book.

It’s a place we go — a sanctuary where we can come face to face with God.

And the reason we can get there so easily is in so small part because of the courage and conviction of a man called William Tyndale. 500 years ago, in 1526, Tyndale threw open the doors to this sanctuary, translating the New Testament from Greek into the everyday language of hearth, heart, and home.

In the deeply suspicious and controlling environment of England in the 16th century scripture was tightly controlled and largely only available in Latin. Tyndale's radical act to bring the Bible into the intimate place of our everyday lives cost him his life as he was martyred in exile for it by an authoritarian regime worried about how the establishment would be undermined if people could read the radical words of Jesus in their own language. But before Tyndale was captured he released revised editions of his New Testament from his exile and translated much of the Old Testament from Hebrew (a language he fell in love with) to English too, which were all smuggled back into England and beyond.

Tyndale, along with many other translators across the world and throughout history bravely worked to make the Bible phenomenally accessible to everyday people, when the powers that be preferred to control and limit access to it. Through the miracle of translation Christ speaks to you in your mother tongue — not mediated through a priest, through an ancient language, through mysterious inscrutable works of art. The Bible becomes in an instant not an artefact, but a place — a place you can get to!

In Melvyn Bragg's William Tyndale, A Very Brief History he describes a scene from Tyndale’s life that articulates his mission. He quotes him as saying the following to a local learned clergyman:

"...if God spare my life ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the scripture than thou dost.” ... In those few words we have the essence of Tyndale — wholly unafraid to stick to his views and express them with public force. The choice of the ploughboy is an aspect of his genius. A ploughboy opened up the land to feed the people, a mundane marvel task like those of the apostles, in stories and in myths; he was an innocent. Above all, the ploughboy was illiterate. That was for him a key incentive. Tyndale would write a Bible to be read aloud so that everyone who had ears to hear would learn at last the messages in the Scriptures. In doing this he would employ a style so brilliantly adapted to his aim that it would be criticised as being artless, too simple, too common. In truth, it was constructed with mastery. He made a lasting new language from and for the common people of England...’ - Melvyn Bragg

Suddenly the Bible is on the map. All at once signposts are up and justice, hope and transformation are in the language of the people. The humble, dedicated and steely Tyndale paid the price of his life for this text, but it would not be suppressed even with his death and less than 100 years later many of these words would form somewhere in the region of 80-90% of the King James Bible. Even if you have only ever heard snatches of the Bible, little idioms or phrases — it is likely you have read the words Tyndale wrote. What happened next was a spiritual, political and creative explosion of innovation; one we still feel now 400 years later. The English language would not be the English language without William Tyndale. And world culture would not be world culture without his groundbreaking translation.

In the 21st century our phones once more throw the doors of the sanctuary open, taking the Bible across borders, into countless languages, finding homes in hearts worldwide. The Bible can be at our fingertips constantly. It's a library open 24/7 and is only ever a few taps away. It is our duty to the world to remind one another that this library is open! That the Bible remains what it has always been... a place for people to come, to find shelter, to meet others, and to encounter God.

We were inspired by the 500 year anniversary of Tyndale’s New Testament to celebrate and rediscover how profoundly accessible the Bible is and promote the habit of reading it aloud together. In a turbulent, uncertain, often stressed and fearful world we can rediscover the Bible as a sanctuary — a place for us to cry and celebrate, rest and hope, discover and rage and... over time… learn to forgive and thereby change our lives and the world.

We owe it to Tyndale.

We owe it to ourselves.

Sanctuary First 2026

Read more about our autumn theme The Bible, Our Sanctuary and check out our free 8-part Bible Study.