God's Bestseller ~ by Brian Moynahan

John Wycliffe 1324-1384

God's Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible--A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal by Brian Moynahan

This book is an illustration of what reading a book can do to change and enhance a person's life. I don't recall why I bought the book, except that it sounded so interesting, but it has had a profound effect on me. I believe one reason is my age--older and wiser so to speak. But if you have any inclination toward an understanding of the past sacrifices that have been made, so that we can have access to reading the Bible, then I advise you to read this book.

After reading half of it--sometimes in tears for the suffering of people who loved the Word of God--I made a promise to myself that I would do my best not to let a day go by without reading, listening, or in some way focusing on God's word. Now this may not sound like a big deal to you, but the strength of the energy which compelled me to make the commitment was a big deal to me! And you may think that as a Christian, I was already doing just that. But it was different to commit myself fully to doing so. So I want to share with you some of the contents of this book about the martyrs, the world they lived in, and the world they died in so wretchedly.

This book begins with the 1426 ceremony for John Wycliffe, a priest and rector who had died 44 years earlier, after suffering a stroke. The ceremony took place after the Pope had declared Wycliffe's posthumous condemnation as a heretic. The Catholic Church went so far as to curse his soul, damning it to eternal separation from God. The Catholic Church itself couldn't carry out a burning, but the high sheriff had the executioner exhume his bones, burn them, and his ashes scattered in the waters of the Swift, ridding the world of all physical trace of the heretic.

Moynahan says that Wycliffe was "a fierce and blunt-spoken Yorkshiremen, and a fine scholar." He had become master of Balliol at Oxford College in 1360 at the age of 30. He says that "Generations of scholars had paid lip service to the Bible, of course. They  mined it for individual texts to use in debates and sermons, and they wrote copious notes and glosses on passages within it. But their approach was logical and scholastic; they did not think of it as a work that was alive and breathing, like the God who had created it. It was a priestly text, dusty, locked up in Latin, safely beyond the reach of the English at large. Religion had come to mean the Church itself, and its traditions." But John Wycliffe was determined to change all of these conditions.

Wycliffe declared the Bible and not the Catholic Church as the "highest authority for every Christian, and the standard of faith and all human perfection." And he made personal faith in Christ more important than obeying the merits of the Catholic Church. He also said that this faith flowed from reading the scripture, and that the decadence of churchmen was an obstacle to it. He continued to rail against the clergy, and the Pope's ownership of the greater part of England. Then he argued that the Bible should be translated from Latin into English, so that the rudest man could learn his duty. The common people were banned from reading the Bible by order of Rome. And before this time, there had never been a complete translation of the Bible. Wycliffe completed his translation of the Vulgate into vernacular English in 1382, and it became known as Wyclif's Bible. He was also the founder of the Lollard movement--a Christian religious Order and preaching movement--which was the precursor to the Protestant Reformation. Because of this, he is often called "The Morning Star of the Reformation."

I really want to talk about Tyndale, but I wanted first to give a little information about some of the thoughts and attitudes before there was a translation of the Bible from Latin into English. So next time, I'll say more about Tyndale and his work. 

Blessings...Mimi