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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Ancient Wisdom, Present Power Part 2

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

Up until the 16th century, the Bible was not a book that you could have owned.

And owing to printing being a labor-intensive and time-consuming business, Bibles weren't printed in any real number.

Even when the movable type printing press came to be thanks to a German goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg, printing was still a slow and extremely expensive enterprise.

And while we tend to think of the Reformation in terms of Germany and Luther and his partner in ministry Melanchthon and the city of Wittenberg, the Reformation grew and spread.

Switzerland under Ulrich Zwingli in the north and John Calvin in the south.

France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, all impacted strongly by the Reformation.

The Reformation gained momentum early in Great Britain.

Years before Luther, John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English in the 1300s.

He was known as the Morning Star of the Reformation.

Wycliffe was really the sign that the Word of God simply couldn't be stopped.

Later the Reformation was kicked into high gear in Britain when the Bible was translated into English again.

Michael Hazel is a university professor, a noted archaeologist, and the director of the Lynn H.

Wood Archaeological Museum on the campus of Southern Adventist University, just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Haasel and I discussed an exhibit of rare books that told the story of the rise of the Reformation and the advancement of the Reformation, which brought the light of the Bible, the teachings of Scripture, to the world broadly for the first time in hundreds of years.

Haasl and I discussed the English Reformation, which was as influential as what was taking place in Wittenberg, Germany, 550 miles to the east.

You know, the English Reformation was happening almost at the same time as Luther was working in Germany.

In fact, many of these people communicated with each other and knew each other.

Tyndale, for 1, went to Wittenberg to talk to Luther at 1 point about his translation of the Bible and so forth, and he was 1 that began the work of translating in England.

How was society affected by the Bible becoming so much more readily accessible?

Well, like in Germany, the Bible had a tremendous impact in England as well.

When Tyndale was finally caught in Belgium and executed by Henry VIII, the last prayer that he prayed was, Lord, please open the eyes of the monarch.

And for the first time, the king's eyes in England were opened, and he considered the Protestant Reformation as a viable reaction to things that were going on in his household and there were a lot of other aspects that were going on, but he sent this response that we have here to the Pope in 1536.

That was only 2 years after Luther finished translating the entire Bible in Germany.

Now before Tyndale was killed, he had completed the entire New Testament translation.

He had also done part of the Old Testament, but wasn't able to complete that.

And so it was Coverdale, Miles Coverdale, that finished the Old Testament and was able to publish it.

And that's what we have here is 1 page of the famous Coverdale Bible published in 1535, the year after Luther's Bible was published.

It's the first edition page, That's correct.

And the Coverdale Bible was not the best translation into the English language.

And later on, there was the Great Bible, there was the Bishop's Bible, there were other Bibles that came along.

Just a couple of years later in 1537, we have this Bible here known as the Thomas Matthew Bible, but Matthews knew what had happened to Tyndale and so Matthews is not his real name.

He used a pseudonym to publish this Bible.

His real name was John Rogers He says I'm not gonna take the risk of having my life taken.

He knew that while Henry VIII was leaning more towards Protestantism as time went on, things could change very rapidly.

He knew that the first daughter of Henry VIII, Princess Mary, could be the next queen eventually.

She was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, who was the daughter of the king and the queen of Spain.

And this was all a very, very important element in the back of his mind.

The sad thing was that as things progressed, his fears were actually realized.

His son, King Edward VI came to the throne.

But he lived long enough to publish this very fine work entitled Arguments Against the Pope's Supremacy.

You can still look this up online today and read through it.

It has very cogent arguments about the authority of scripture and allowing scripture to really be the basis for faith.

He published this, and on his deathbed, he changed his will and pronounced his cousin, Lady Jane, as the heir to the throne of England as the next queen, knowing that his half-sister, Mary, would turn everything around and make it Catholic again.

And a few days later, Mary comes down from the north with her armies.

The Privy Council switches sides, and it's the shortest reign in history of any queen of England.

Lady Jane only lasts for 9 days, and Mary is inaugurated as Queen in Westminster Abbey, and the first thing that Mary does when she is Queen is put to death John Rogers or Thomas Matthews, who had translated this Bible.

And that begins a series of persecutions during her reign that would continue for the next 5 years or so.

She became known, of course, as Bloody Mary.

1, there's a tendency to forget our history.

2, it's easy to forget just what a big deal this was.

Without the Tyndales and the Rogers of the world willing to almost, you know, to stick their neck out, put their life on the line, things would look very different today.

1 could argue the Bible would eventually bubble to the surface, but you know what I mean.

These people paved the way for people like us to have faith in God by delivering the Bible to us.

It speaks of that sacrifice and the importance of the Bible.

How do you not value the Bible when you consider what people have done to preserve it and deliver it to us today?

People were being put to death for their faith in God.

The authorities did not want the Bible to be circulated.

Monarchs were ascending the throne and executing the people who didn't agree with them on religious matters.

As the church began to lose ground, it was recognized that something had to be done to preserve its power.

The church began to push back, and it all affected how people would relate to the Bible even today.

Call now for today's free offer, From Script to Scripture.

Enjoy the rest of the conversation between John Bradshaw and Dr.

Michael Hassel, including faith-building stories we couldn't fit into today's program.

A rare opportunity to turn the pages of history, see books that change the world and learn insights that will grow your faith in God.

Call 800-253-3000 for the free DVD, 800-253-3000 or visit www.iiwoffer.com Thanks for joining me on It is Written.

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, it was a case of an obscure priest in a nothing sort of a town speaking out about what he believed was inconsistent with genuine faith in God.

But people noticed what Luther wrote and his 95 points of protest were distributed far and wide.

As providence would have it, the printing press had been invented just in time for the Reformation to really kick off.

What began in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517, today a city of about 50, 000 people 50 miles or so from Berlin, quickly spread as others took up the cause of sharing the Bible and teaching salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

The teachings of the Reformers were radically different to what the ruling Catholic church had been teaching.

Understandably, the church was not favorably disposed to what Luther and others were proclaiming.

So the church fought back and the Counter-Reformation was born.

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Ancient Wisdom, Present Power Part 2

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