Dear Church Family,

Hope the Christmas season is a blessing to you. I love this time of year and look for opportunities to share the Gospel with friends, family, and neighbors. I am also looking forward to worship on Christmas Eve. If you are able to come, please invite someone who needs the LORD. I saw this article and thought it would bless you—

A man was strangled for a Christmas present.

Then burned.

His crime?

He translated the Bible into English.

1536. A prison courtyard in Belgium.

William Tyndale kneels in the dirt.

He’s been there over a year. Betrayed by a friend. Arrested for heresy. Stripped of his priesthood in a public ceremony designed to humiliate him.

The executioner steps forward.

Rope around the neck.

Twist.

Then they set his body on fire.

His last words, shouted loud enough for the crowd to hear:

“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”

Here’s what they don’t teach you:

In 1536, Scripture belonged to the priests.

Latin only.

If you wanted to know what God said, you asked a man in robes. You paid for the privilege. You believed whatever interpretation he handed you.

Tyndale said no.

He said a plowboy in a field should read the same words as the Pope in Rome.

That sentence cost him everything.

For twelve years he lived as a fugitive.

Fled England. Hid in Germany. Translated in secret. Smuggled Bibles in bales of cloth.

Every copy he printed was illegal.

Every copy that reached English shores was burned.

And still they came.

The Church hunted him like an animal.

They finally caught him through betrayal.

A man he trusted turned him over for money.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the part that wrecked me:

Two years after Tyndale was strangled and burned, King Henry VIII authorized an English Bible in every church in England.

Eighty percent of it came from Tyndale’s translation.

The King James Version on your shelf?

Tyndale is the foundation.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son…”

That’s Tyndale.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”

Tyndale wrote that in English while hiding from men who wanted him dead.

His prayer was answered.

The King’s eyes were opened.

The book he died for became the most published book in human history.

And it’s sitting on your nightstand.

Unopened.

A man was strangled and burned so your family could read Scripture in English.

When’s the last time you opened it?

Press On!

Mark