UNREACHED
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb.
Yet today there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world.
For the last six years, my family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet and fund the task remaining.
Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the UNREACHED.
UNREACHED
William Tyndale's Accomplices with Eric Weathers
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We trace the hidden network that carried William Tyndale’s English New Testament from German presses to English hands, revealing how merchants, widows, lawyers, and pastors risked everything to move the word across borders. Eric Weathers shows why accuracy from the original languages still shapes healthy churches and how marketplace skills can fuel the Great Commission today.
• Tyndale’s translation grounded in Greek and Hebrew
• John and Anne Walsh as early patrons and protectors
• Humphrey Monmouth’s funding and trade routes
• Printing in Worms and small-format smuggling tactics
• The courage of Simon Fish, Mrs Fish, and James Bainham
• Antwerp’s English House, Thomas Pointz, and betrayal by Henry Phillips
• Anne Boleyn’s role in circulating reform texts
• Tyndale’s martyrdom and the Great Bible in churches
• Why rigorous training in original languages matters
• The call for marketplace professionals to be senders
Purchase William Tyndale's Accomplices by Eric Weathers here...
https://www.amazon.com/William-Tyndales-Accomplices-Essential-Forbidden-ebook/dp/B0GFD249SS/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1
A note from our team here at UNREACHED...
If this podcast adds value for you, and we hope it does, would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen.
Also SHARE with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, D group, wherever you do life.
And if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram @unreachedpodcast or email us at unreachedpodcast@gmail.com.
In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people, and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today, there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. My family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet, and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the unreached.
SPEAKER_01Over the past several seasons of the Unreached Podcast, we have come across men and women who are carving out unique and creative pathways to fulfill the Great Commission. They are authors, innovators. We like to call them Trailblazers. And this is one of their stories. So today, enjoy this episode of Unreached Trailblazers.
Meet Dr. Eric Weathers
Why English Bibles Cost Blood
SPEAKER_02Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Unreached Podcast. Dustin Elliott, your host. My guest today is Dr. Eric Weathers. He's with the Masters Academy International. He's the senior vice president there. This man travels the world uh preaching and teaching. He also equips 19 uh schools around the world, kind of Bible colleges, to train indigenous and local pastors on how to lead their church, how to teach the Bible verse by verse. And we're so happy to have him because he has taken on a task that's so important that everyone who speaks English and would claim English as their heart language needs to needs to hear what we're going to talk about today. We take for granted the fact that we have so many wonderful translations of the Bible in English and so many commentaries and so many thought-provoking uh sermons and videos that we get to engage with. But it wasn't always such. As you know, the Bible was not written in English. And so it was first translated into English by Wycliffe from a Latin version of the Bible. It was later translated directly by a guy named William Tyndale. And William Tyndale faced incredible persecution to get the Bible into English. And he had incredible help. And his helpers, his accomplices, also faced incredible persecution. And our friend Eric has written a book about the accomplices of William Tyndale, about the men and women who risked their own lives and their families' prosperity and future to give him housing and lodging and and funds so he could complete this work. This work happened uh in Europe, mostly in Germany and in England. And today we're gonna tell the story as this book is out. It is out, it is published. William Tyndale's Accomplices, and so help me today, help me welcome Dr. Eric Weathers. Eric, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for the honor of such an important invitation.
SPEAKER_02Oh, this is such an important book. And I think we need to hear it. We need to understand what people went through so we could experience God's word personally in our own heart language and prayerfully that will encourage us to help others do the same. So why don't we why don't we start with just a little bit about you? What inspired you to take on this incredible and monumental task?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I I uh grew up in a wonderful, loving family, not a family that was churchbound for any means. Uh people say, What religion were you when I grew up? I said water ski. That's about all we did. I was competitive water skier as a kid, and that's all I did. And uh then one day one of my uh skiing mentors just asked me, Hey, what if you were to die tonight? You know, that that wonderful question, what what would you do if the Lord were to say to you, Why would I, why should I let you into heaven? And and I didn't know back then, but he shared with me Ephesians 2. By grace, we're saved through faith. And uh that really hit me. And so I began to just kind of think that through. And then um, you know, I met a girl, of course, who's my wife now, and she brought me to Grace Community Church out in Southern California where John MacArthur at that point, uh, that would have been 1983. He was in, I think, Romans 8 at that time at in the evening and Matthew 24 in the morning. And so and I was in diapers. I'm telling how old I am now. So but anyway. The Lord just uh reared me at um in in my latter part of my youth, 20s, at Grace Community Church and uh fell in love with the Word of God and uh took some Bible classes, and then I applied for the first year of the master's university. So I like to tell Pastor John that you know we started the school at the same time, he, the president, and I at Lowly students.
SPEAKER_02No, that's awesome. That is so cool. It goes all the way back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00It's all the way back, yeah. So I got a bachelor's degree in Bible youth ministry, and uh then I did a year of seminary at the master's seminary, but then I I I didn't sense I was ready for full-time ministry. I wasn't old enough in the Lord and uh started working for FedEx. I was putting aircraft uh boxes on aircraft and helicopters, and I ended up promoting several times throughout the company, ended up actually in the world headquarters advising corporate management on the direction of the company, which was odd for me because I never had a you know business background. But but I always wanted to stay close to the Lord in terms of church, was an elder at uh you know churches in California and Memphis, Tennessee, and uh just serving, and I fell in love with this topic of global supply chain management. I've so I taught that at our company. Okay, that makes some sense here.
SPEAKER_02How did we get these pieces together?
From FedEx To Tyndale’s Supply Chain
SPEAKER_00Right. So I taught that in the U.S. and a couple of occasions in Europe and just loved helping companies find out ways to improve their cash-to-cash cycle times and still serving at church, but then finally uh my wife called it, we called it our our pipe dream to go back to seminary and and I just praying, Lord, how do I how do I combine this physical resume, you know, at FedEx with preaching? Where do I fit in? And it was through that time uh that I had to do a dissertation for my my doctorate, and and that dissertation was on biblical principles for the marketplace. So I preached several sermons on that. And then this is kind of where the whole Tyndale thing comes in. It's like, okay, how did this genius who knew eight languages fluently, some of them he knew flow knew so well that people on the street thought it was whatever language he spoke was his natural language, his heart language, as you like to say. He was a genius. So how did he how did a guy like this, a a bookworm, how did he figure out how to smuggle 6,000 Bibles illegally from Europe into England? How did he stay secret for 10 years? Who helped him? There had to be somebody to help him. Who's who who owns the supply chain? And so that's kind of brings us up to speed with where we are now. That was my question. How on earth did he do this?
SPEAKER_02Okay. This makes a lot more sense now, understanding kind of your background. So I want to I want to point out a couple things before we move into the next part of uh of the book and and Tyndale story. One, you were very humble through your life. It sounds like as you were maybe called to preach or called to lead, you were saying, you know, I'm not ready for that yet. I'm gonna take some more time. So you you were aware of your kind of shortcomings and you didn't put yourself out there too fast. So kudos for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, no doubt. Um second, when you got the call kind of back to ministry, so you would you had stayed involved in your churches, you were an elder, you were a servant, you you still were very much playing that part while you were in the marketplace.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_02You didn't abandon what you learned in the marketplace to go into ministry. You said, here's my set of skills and gifts and experience. How can I leverage those in the ministry? Well put. Right. And I think I want to hear people say that because we want you to bring your whole self to the Great Commission, to the task remaining. We don't want you to leave behind what God's taught you and the gifts he's endowed upon you and go do something completely different, right? So there is a way for you to play a role using your whole self. Yeah, right. And and and so you came into it with that posture. Yeah. And, you know, then you got this prompt, this kind of poke in the side, if you will, right? Like, okay, here's this incredible story. Who were the people that helped him, right? And you you even when we were talking before we hit record, you mentioned how the Bible, uh, a lot of different places in the Bible, it it really sings the praises of the helpers, right? To the main characters.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_02Right. So take us on forward then. You you got this, who did this, and you started to research and tell us kind of what happened next.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, my my wife and I, as I say in the book, um, we we were on our way to London to enjoy our 40th wedding anniversary, and and I'd been there before, done walking tours, and so she hadn't we're gonna do a walking tour of English Reformation. And I looked at a William Tyndale uh portrait, and he was all by himself. And I thought, I gotta see that portrait. It's in the National Portrait Gallery in London. So we went there and we couldn't find it. It wasn't there. And so I said to one of the helpers, Where's where's Tyndale? And they said, Well, nobody knows if it's really him, and you know, after all, we don't even know who the artist is. I'm like, what? You you can't take this down. This is like super important to English history.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
The Excel That Mapped A Reformation
SPEAKER_00And so then I got looking to looking at the portrait later because it wasn't there, and I thought, Lord, there's something missing here. And it's the senders. Tyndale could not have done this by himself. How did he do it? And so I launched out, I'm a spreadsheet kind of guy, and so I built this Excel spreadsheet, and I'm doing my research, and I'm like, how am I gonna remember all this stuff that I'm reading? Because nobody's writing about this topic. It's all over the place in books that are four or five hundred years old. So I do this Excel spreadsheet, so everything's searchable. I do it by date, I do it by city, I do it by name, I do it by theological issue that might cross my mind at the time. And there were plenty of those. Plenty of those. Plenty of them. There's so much left out of the book. Oh my goodness. But but finally at the end of this thing, I had 2300 rows that I could sort by date, I could sort by city, sort by person, and and all this comes together, and it's like I'm colorblind, but I'm seeing things in living color now, finally.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00About all the people that helped him. They just kind of just came out of the woodwork and they're like sitting in my office with me. I'm kidding, obviously they're not. I don't get it.
SPEAKER_02No, we get you. We get you. And all of a sudden, but that's the level of depth you want to get to if you're gonna write a book and be an authority on a subject, right? Where you're sitting with them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And so they're with me, and and and I just um I just started at Tyndale when he was in the university at Oxford, Magdalene Hall, which is now called Hertford College, then in Oxford University. He graduates from that place, probably at the age of 19 or 20, no, probably at 20, because by law you can't graduate until you're 20. He makes his way to Cambridge.
SPEAKER_03Right.
John And Anne Walsh: First Senders
SPEAKER_00And we have no historical proof that he actually studied there. We think he did, but there's no records of that. Right. He spent time there. He knew people there. But he left there in 1522 and he went to this uh really important family. I I asked people, I said, Who's John and Ann Walsh? Nobody knows. You gotta know John and Ann Walsh. He's he's the family that he There, Priscilla and Aquila at his time, yeah, right? Well, ultimately they became that. Yeah. So he he goes to this family, and and so this house, you can look it up on the internet today. In fact, I have a footnote in the in the book that has a link to the site, and it's called Little Sodbury Manor. It's 17,300 square feet.
SPEAKER_03Whoa.
SPEAKER_00So we're just thinking some little house this guy arises. Well, no, it's not this big mansion.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00And so he disciples their children. They hire him to do this. Well, you got this guy who's a theological powerhouse who's translating the Bible from the original language and spending time with this family, John and Ann Walsh. And so he disciples them. And all of a sudden, uh the normal people that gather around the dinner table are coming. You got, you know, the religious people, you got the Roman Catholic religious people, you got business leaders, you have everybody who's, you know, high society shows up around the dinner table. And here's Tyndale, as they get in conversations, as you and I would be in a conversation, we'd we might not give a Bible verse, but we're thinking and and we're communicating scripture. And so that's what he did around the dinner table with whatever topic you know that came up. And so then people got upset with him because he began to be clear in the minds of the people to be violating what's called the Constitutions of Oxford in 1408 that said those who read the Bible, those who translate the Bible, ultimately, if they continue, will be burned at the stake. And so they know where this guy's heading. And now he's beginning to take issue with the Roman Catholic governance of the land, and his answers are biblical, right? And that's foreign to them. If we're not hearing the word of God, it sounds foreign, we don't like it because it's offensive, but um because we don't know it.
SPEAKER_02But just to be clear, at this point in time, people did not have a Bible in their pocket, they did not have access to one in the library, they didn't have one in the back of the pew at church, right? Just to be clear for the fifth grade version of me listening to this, right? Uh the only Bible they knew was what they were told, however true or not true it was, right, by the Roman Catholic Church. Yeah. And there were laws in place to prevent you from accessing the Bible uh or trying to translate it yourself and get that knowledge firsthand.
SPEAKER_00Right. There were families burned at the stake because they would cite, you know, Psalm 23 or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So just picture that for the listener, like that's where we are. That's the kind of risk that he's engaging with. And anyone housing him or associating with him is also engaging with.
SPEAKER_00Right. They're an accomplice. He was a criminal and they were criminals with him. And so the scripture that they would get would uh would be from uh lollards who were aligned with Wycliffe's Bible. They were preachers, so they would get from the original Latin, and they would get translations of works that were making their way bootlegged across the shoreline into the uh into the UK modern day UK of Luther's works. And so they get bits and pieces of scripture and they just go, wait a minute. We don't see what's happening with what we're being told with Roman Catholicism. It's not playing that way out in these writings. We need a Bible. And so you got you got Tyndale who's ministering to the Walsh family, Lady Ann Walsh, she takes issue with Tyndale at one point, called him out on the carpet, and I recognize this as God, really humbling Tyndale. She's like, hey, we've got all these well in her words, beneficed men, wealthy, they've been uh trained in religion. Why should we believe you? He was very wise. He didn't stand up to that woman and just say, Here's why, you know, they're wrong and I'm right. He took a deep breath, took a break, and then he gave her a translation of a uh of a book that was originally done in Greek and put and put it into English and gave it to her. And then eventually she came back and she said, Oh, I see. And John Fox notes in the book Acts and Monuments, he was a contemporary to Tyndale. He said, and all of a sudden they never invited those others to come to the dinner table. And and that's when stories were made up about Tyndale. He was called to the carpet by the local bishop, right, ran him through like a piece of meat. And he realized right then that he had to leave, that if he stayed, that the Walsh's lives would be put at risk. And he had that conversation with Sir John, who was friends with King Henry VIII at the time.
Laws, Lollards, And Risk
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you just think about all the people. There's a lot of famous people that are alive at this point in time. Yeah. Right. And most people, most of us know who King Henry VIII was, and we know who Anne Boleyn was, and we know who a lot of these people were, but you're you're talking about folks that aren't as well known. Movies haven't been made about them. Nope. But uh maybe they should be. They should be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So what happens next? He knows he has to leave, and where does he go?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So he ends up uh taking about a 115-mile trip, probably on horseback, to central London, because he knows, based upon some feedback from one of his mentors, Latimer. Latimer tells him, look, the only way you're going to get this done is to get approval from the Bishop of London, at least. So he thinks, okay, I'm going to London. So he takes probably a four or five-day journey to London, finally ends up there. Uh Cuthbert Tunstall is the bishop of London at the time. Extremely wealthy man, very close to the king. Uh, entertains the king's guests when the king can't do so. But he's he's needing to get approval from Tunstall, and he thinks he can get it because Erasmus got Tunstall's approval to translate the Bible uh from Greek into Latin.
SPEAKER_02So Tyndall thought, you know, he got this approval. I'm probably going to be able to get this.
To London: Monmouth Steps In
SPEAKER_00I'm going to get it too well, right. Right. But that would be a violation of the Constitution of Oxford. But the Constitutions of Oxford said if you get approval, then it's okay, but it's going to take this. Well, so make a long story short, over a period of several months, he doesn't get approval. What he does is he ends up preaching at a church called St. Dunstan's in the West. And I contend in the book that that he gets that appointment based upon some introductions, probably from the Walshes and probably from some other characters that are mentioned in the book. But nonetheless, he's preaching at this church. Well, this guy, businessman, Humphrey Monmouth, hears about this Tyndale preaching at this church, which for him is a three-mile-round trip. Well, we think three miles is no big deal, but they didn't have cars back then. You know, it's three miles in the winter back and forth. He's going to go listen to expository preaching. He's hearing he's hearing Tyndale preach. And then one day he he pulls him aside after a sermon, says, Hey, what's your living? In other words, how are you making a living? He goes, Well, I'm I'm waiting for my audience with Tunstall to get approval to translate the Bible. And he says, Hey, why don't you just live in my house? Because maybe he was homeless. We don't know. He didn't have a place to live. And so he takes him in and feeds him, clothes them. Uh Monmouth is a very wealthy man. He would be the equivalent to a current, you know, Fortune 100 CEO, kind of powerful man. Uh and so he heard this preaching, and then it became apparent that he wasn't gonna be able to stay in England much longer because as he did with the the Walsh's, people were beginning to get a sense for the gospel because he's preaching the word fresh from the Greek text into the modern day language.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. And he was changing.
SPEAKER_02And it doesn't say penance where it says repentance. So there's certain things that are coming out that they're hearing that we haven't ever heard this before.
SPEAKER_00It's foreign, it sounds weird, but I've never heard this. You're right. And there was a statement made uh before But it's the living word. It's the yeah, it's the living word. Right. And and and Tyndale was committed, and this is a famous statement that was made. Somebody challenged him and said, you know, it would be better to violate the Pope's laws than God's laws. And he says, you know what? If God gives me air many years. The boy that driveth the plow will know more about God's word than the Pope. And that's in the book. And that's in the book. Yes. That's Foxy's.
SPEAKER_02The plow boy knows more Bible than the Pope. Yeah. What a statement. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So anyway, so he's with um he's with Monmouth. Monmouth uh is growing in the Lord. Uh Monmouth is bringing in um bootleg documents from Luther and he has them on his shelf.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And he hides them in book bindings that would have been some of the more well-known Catholic church fathers of the day. He's hidden them on his shelf because he knows if he gets caught, he's in trouble. So that comes up again later. But so Monmouth is all in and he guarantees support. He's introducing him to his network of business partners, church friends. He introduced him to the steelyard in London, which has nothing to do with steel, as you would think of steel. It has to do with textiles. And so these guys at the London Steelyard are importing all kinds of goods from the what's called the Low Countries. That's Germany, Belgium area today. And along with that are coming in all these Luther books. Right. Right. We're smuggling books. We're smuggling books, that's right.
SPEAKER_02Of all the things to be smuggling. That's what we're that's what we're about.
Flight To Germany And Wittenberg
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But what they didn't have was a full compilation of the New Testament. So Tyndale's learning: if I don't get out of here, Monmouth's going to be in trouble. So Monmouth guarantees funding. And he hops on a boat in the dark of night, makes a 500-mile trip on boat through the North Sea, down the Elba River, and ends up in Germany.
SPEAKER_02There you go.
SPEAKER_00Based upon Tyndale's relationships in in London with Monmouth, with the Walshes, he makes friends, or he gets a uh a recommendation, I contend in the book, with this wonderful widow named Margaret Van Emerson. So he stays at her house for a night, maybe two. He's in a hurry to get to Wittenberg. She puts him up. She's uh been a widow for two years, got six kids, and takes a risk for taking him in. But a couple of days later, he's gone. So he heads down to Wittenberg, meets up with uh with Luther and with Melanchthon. Now, history uh there's some there's some disagreement in history whether or not he actually attended Wittenberg. I contend, along with some historians, why he why we know he was there. Uh rather than go into that here. You just have to read it.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, you can leave a little bit out. Yeah, leave a little bit out.
Printing, Raids, And 6,000 Testaments
SPEAKER_00We we want him to read the book. So he leaves there uh about a year later, a little less than a year, and he makes his way back to Margaret Van Emerson's house, which is where he receives Monmouth's funding and funding from others who were within that network, that supply chain, and then makes his way uh into parts of Germany to do translation. So he begins translating. What he thinks is going to be translated and shipped in 1525 didn't happen because he uh he was found out. Right. And uh had to flee out the back door of this printer and make his way uh up the river, if you will. Yeah. So he does that, makes his way up to Worms, Germany, which is a famous city where Martin Luther, just a few years before, had to defend himself at the threat of death, makes his way to Worms, which is where he um he worked with another printer. Uh so this printer, uh, you know, they they worked, they put it together, and they make a historical defense for how we know it's 6,000 uh in the book. Some think it's only 3,000, and I go into why we think it's 6,000, and we give historical evidence for that. 6,000 copies ultimately were printed. The first the first go-round, 1526, is when those Bibles then uh probably right around the first week, second week of March, 1526. So we're looking at 500 years ago at this period of time that these Bibles began to arrive on the shore of England.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's amazing. And you know, God loves God loves uh round numbers, right? There's a lot of repetition of numbers in in the Bible and three and twelve and forty and four hundred and different ones. But uh 500 years ago, right now, is when this is when this actually happened.
SPEAKER_00This is when it's happening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so how cool is it that you were ordained to do this at this point? So the 6,000 are printed. Now, when you were when you were gonna print a book at this point, you would have made a fancy uh cover. The book probably would have been fairly large. Um, it would have obviously said what the book was, but they made these smaller, yeah, kind of the size of the Bibles that we have today, roughly.
SPEAKER_00Like it's called a quattro, right? Quattro.
The Smuggling Network
SPEAKER_02Yeah, talk about why they did it that way, right? So you you you they didn't have a title, it didn't say holy Bible on the front, right? It needed to be able to kind of be concealed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, the 1525-26 version actually did say New Testament and EWE. Okay. But there was no recording on there who the printer was. There was no recording of who did the translation. Right, right, right. You couldn't trace it back to somebody. Right. Yeah. Small because they wanted to be able to put it within the within what they called back then a cloak. We would call it a coat.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So you could hide it. Small, so you could smuggle it. And this is where a lot of Tyndale's accomplices come in. There are so many people involved in this smuggling event on both sides of the ocean.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So they have to be able to hide it in bales of cotton, uh, bales of textiles. I even read accounts where they were hidden in barrels of uh of liquor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Whiskey caskets, whiskey, yeah. All that.
SPEAKER_00So it was hidden. And then they imported them, or I should say, exported them to various different ports with throughout England. So it wasn't just one location.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we couldn't risk it all, you know, getting caught at one spot. So they sent them around.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so there's a lot of people involved in this, people at the London Steelyard, people within uh, you know, certainly in in Europe, and there's a lot of names that we will never know this side of heaven that were involved. But you know what? There were names that that I pulled out of historical accounts, dusted them off, and fell in love with their characters because they were just salt-of-the-art people. Some of them were of extreme wealth, others were brickmakers, others were, you know, just university students, they were lawyers, they were widows, just normal, everyday life people who said, I will die to get this Bible into the hands of the English people. And then they were German people, you know. Right. I'll do this.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. And so to go into that further cast of characters, let's talk about maybe uh Simon Fish and his bride and then and then James Payne.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so Simon Fish was uh key character um in the book. So he was um a man who was discipled by Tyndale. He was part of the Inns of Court. There's four Inns of Court, as I found out in my research. And inns of court are st are just what we will call today law schools.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Uh, and so these guys were learning the law, and so he became very strong in this. And he was a part of the smuggling efforts to bring the Bibles in. When he was arrested, just like everybody else who's arrested, they make their way down via boat, River Thames in central London. And if you've ever been to um the Tower of London, which I highly recommend anybody who's listening to this, go to the Tower of London. You'll see the traitor's gate. And at the Traitor's Gate, 500 years ago, uh, that was the place where traitors were brought through. They were going to be in prison until they would either be executed or let go.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00But hanging from the arch of the traitor's gate were these skulls of former prisoners. And so Simon Fish, he would go through and he would see these skulls, you know, hanging in.
SPEAKER_02This was London. This wasn't some tribe in the middle of nowhere hanging skulls up. This wasn't, this wasn't, you know, uh put their head on a pike back in biblical days. I mean, this was London 500 years ago.
SPEAKER_00A city of 50,000 people at that time, big city. And so, yeah, so he goes through there and and he knows that um he may not come out of this alive. Well, and Tyndale wrote a letter to him while he was in prison.
SPEAKER_02Right, okay.
SPEAKER_00And it was a it was a lengthy letter, but the letter included a quote from his wife. And basically, I'll just give the gist of it, but basically it's you know, hey honey, um, stand strong for the Lord. God's gonna take care of me. Remember the saints. And so basically, what she was telling him is be strong until the point where the Lord may have to take you home.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm gonna be okay. Yeah, I'm gonna be okay. The Lord's gonna take care of you. I love you. You're doing you're doing God's work, I'm for it. Yeah. And and and see it through. Yeah. Right? Finish that finish your task.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah. So Simon Fish dies, and she gets married to another reformer. It's a friend of his. A friend of his, guy named James Bainham.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And ultimately he got caught.
SPEAKER_02This was a woman after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00So a woman after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_02She was only with men who were after God's own heart. Absolutely. So she had lost her husband to a horrible execution. Yep. Burning at the stake. And then chose to marry another guy who was doing the same work. Yeah. And the result?
SPEAKER_00He's burned at the stake.
SPEAKER_02History repeated itself. Yeah. And she was steadfast through that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I go into the testimony that these guys are giving, even the guys, their last words as they're, you know, about to be lit on fire. What did they say? And so Fox records that and I put it in the book. And it's one of those points where there were tears shed over the study of this because I'm thinking these are just these are real people. They're just like us. They love their families, and they're like, you know, God is far more important than my loved one. And I'm going to encourage him to stay faithful to the end. And she does so. Yeah. I mean, we're just getting the tip of the iceberg here. There's so many other great stories.
SPEAKER_02Well, the most famous last words would be, you know, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. Right. But these were versions of that. Yeah. Um, in their own way, what they were called to do and called to be faithful. And obviously, uh the church has been persecuted throughout history, but the persecuted church often is the most exciting and the and the fastest growing uh church. Yeah. It's true today, with you look at where the church is growing the most today, it's in pretty much the most persecuted parts of the world.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Right. Persecution is the fire that that keeps the uh the bright wick glowing in the growth of the church.
SPEAKER_02Amen. Amen. So after um Bainum passes, um, maybe conclude us with with Tyndale's story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so he uh when when Tyndale writes this letter, he's probably in Antwerp at the time. And we think he was in the English house, what's called the English House. And the English House was kind of like a oh, kind of like an embassy. It was a safe place for international business people to reside. Uh they would have some diplomatic protections back then, and that's where Tyndale lived in this English house. And one of the guys that led that house uh was a guy named Thomas Points. I I can ask anybody who's a believer today, who's Thomas Points? And people just go, ah, I don't know, who is this? Thomas Pointz is very important because he's the guy who took Tyndale in in about uh 1534, 1535. So that when Tyndale was befriended by a guy named Henry Phillips, who actually was his Judas, he betrayed Tyndale. He was living in Point's house at the time. Well, Points had to go away on a business trip. This guy, Phillips, you know, he comes and he makes friends. He is well educated. He had uh an advanced degree uh in engineering. Um and and he came along with a servant that was uh indicating that he was a guy of wealth. So he takes Tyndale out to dinner before they they go to dinner. He says, Hey, I forgot my money. He says, Um, do you mind if I just borrow from you tonight and I'll pay you back? Well, so he takes his last coins. And then minutes later, as they're walking down the dark alley in the evening, he uh Phillips points at Tyndale and they arrest him. Yeah. And so then Thomas Points doesn't He didn't kiss him on the cheek, but same concept. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. So Thomas Points is away on his business trip. Uh the uh the authorities there in the Belgium uh Antwerp area, they raid the English house, which is a no-no because that's like invading an embassy. Yeah. But they thought they had a criminal. Sovereign soil. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Politics, Cromwell, And Monmouth’s Trial
SPEAKER_00They're going after him. Well, Thomas Points figures this out. And and well, Thomas Points um is a guy who's related by by the first marriage of John Walsh of John and Anne Walsh back in 1522 that we talked about. They have a strong relationship all the way up to the to the king and to Anne Boleyn and to others on the uh on the court. He spends a significant amount of time trying to get Tyndale freed uh through Thomas Cromwell and others. And when when Phillips finds out that that Tyndale's about to be let out of prison, oh my goodness, he makes up a bunch of lies and they throw points into prison. It's like, oh this businessman who's trying to live for the Lord, run his business, is all of a sudden in jail for being a reformer. Right. Ultimately he gets out and he had to flee back to England. It was safer for that man in England than it was to be in the Low Countries because Charles V was the nephew of Queen Catherine of Aragon, who is King Henry VIII's first first wife. Right. Henry VIII wants to divorce her. Well, he's going, hey, you're you're trying to divorce my aunt. He's the he's he's the emperor over the Holy Roman Empire at that time. There's a hatred between these two countries now, and there's a war starting, and so I go into that in the book, and and how Humphrey Monmouth plays into this war, this pending war, and how the economy is tanking until Humphrey Monmouth is let out of prison. Uh I go into his um business arguments as to why he should be let out. It's it's the deposition that was taken four hundred and some years ago. It's out there. You can read it.
SPEAKER_02You can read it. And to read the book, Monmouth is a character that is just as challenging to follow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh because if you read it in a shin deep kind of a quick f fashion, it almost looks like he has a Peter moment where he denies Tyndale. Yeah. Um But you contend and tell the listeners, you contend he was more more cunning and more savvy than that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, when when he was called out for potentially well, for for supporting Tyndale, he said, Hey, I I didn't know that the Bible was translated nautily is the word he used, nautily. And what he's saying is, I didn't know your side of the story, basically, right? Right. He's not saying it was translated poorly or badly. He's just saying, I didn't know your and he didn't say it in those words, but he's saying I I didn't know your side of the story, I didn't know it was translated nautily.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. So he's very uh cautious about what he says and it's very impactful. Yeah. And ultimately he makes a strong argument both legally, both by grace, and by economic standards, why he should be let out of prison. Right. The the economy's tanking. If he goes back to work, people get the jobs back.
SPEAKER_02And it was that significant. Yeah. And then and and the powers that be realize that. Yeah. And if you look at the task remaining today, where where, you know, quote, we have not yet gotten because it's behind hostile borders, um successful business people are often welcomed, even as Christians. Yeah. So that story holds true even today. Yeah. Right? If you're here just with the purpose of being a missionary, we're not letting you in. But if you're here running a business and you're gonna employ hundreds of thousands of our people and bring up our economy, come on. Yeah, come on in. That's right. We're all for it. That's right. And you bring the gospel in with you, and you know, Monmouth was kind of a big figure in that storyline five hundred years ago.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And and in the end, the Lord was very gracious to him. Um I go into the details about that uh little cliffhanger here. He ultimately became the alderman of the tower of London. Yeah. And then ultimately the mayor of London and had a significant role to play in the execution of the king's attorney who fought against him, that would be Thomas More. Um the details about Thomas More and uh and Humphrey Monmouth go deep. There was an animosity between those two with a couple of different lawsuits that Moore had a uh conflict of interest in having this guy locked up in jail, and I go into the details of what that lawsuit is.
SPEAKER_02So let's talk about Anne Boleyn for a second. Just as a figure, a lot of people will hear that name and will associate with, you know, a show like The Tudors and just Henry VIII and just the uh promiscuity and infidelity and the things we know, but you actually contend she had some pretty redemptive purpose uh with a lot of this as well. Why don't you tell us that side of her story?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thank you for putting it that way, redemptive purpose, because we don't know if she was saved, but I tell you what, she was certainly empathetic to the Reformation.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00There were faithful accomplices that um got a hold of some very sound Reformation materials that got those things into her hands and she read them and read them and read them. And it was found out that she had them, which you know, they called her on the carpet for it. But some of the books and tracts that Tyndale had written, she's the one that put into the hands of her husband, the king. About the time that he was getting his divorce from his first wife, Anne Boleyn was coming through. Well, he had to figure out a way to deny the Roman Catholic Pope. And so he became the head of the church, the act of supremacy in England, called him the head of the church. And so he kicked out the whole mindset of Roman Catholicism. Well, shouldn't say that. Uh it a lot of it stuck around. But they were selling off Roman Catholic lands, and it was becoming more of um uh Reformation sensitive, I guess you could say.
Tyndale’s Martyrdom And Great Bible
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. More fertile soil and just and just kind of a uh more opportunistic time based on some of those events that had happened. So isn't it interesting that God could use the king's divorce in pursuit of a younger model uh to soften the land for the Reformation and these events to take place? So then ultimately, kind of land the plane here with me, ultimately um what happens with Tyndale?
SPEAKER_00Well, ultimately what happens is finally uh Thomas Points uh his efforts to get him freed didn't come through. And uh he ended up losing all his opportunities to get out of jail. They marched him to the gallows. Well, not the gallows, to the stake. To the stake. And uh he was chained. It's a chain that they tethered him to this pole, and they they put the um the the sticks of wood around him. Um and at at the very end uh he it Most people know his last words. Uh Lord, open the King of England's eyes. And so at that flames were lit, gunpowder goes off, and he's blown to smithereens. And within two years the Lord answered that prayer. Lord, open the King of England's eyes, and the King allowed for a Bible to be placed in churches. It's called the Great Bible. Uh it was actually chained to the pulpit. They chained it down because people would steal it, and it was an expensive Bible, so they didn't want that happening. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Accuracy, Languages, And TMAI
SPEAKER_02So for the listeners, um definitely read this book because I think it what it'll do, one, it'll just it'll give you a history lesson of some really famous characters and a different view maybe into their life and what they went through to get the Bible into English. Um two, let that be encouraging for you and inspiring for you to consider what you could be doing today that you're not to get the Bible into other languages. Because there are a few thousand languages left uh to translate. E10 and others have a goal of 2033 to complete translation. Uh it's obviously a very aggressive goal. We obviously have new technology. Um but but something that my friend Eric and Mark Tatlock and Wayne Knowles and the TMAI guys would want to share. And I want to give Eric the floor to share this is when we're translating God's word, it is so critical that we are using the original Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic going directly to that language. Otherwise, we're translating a translation. And so just talk a little bit about why TMAI is so focused and so careful on the accuracy uh of this whole process.
Marketplace Calling And Sending
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, just as you're talking there, uh 2 Timothy 2.15 comes to mind. Study to show yourself approved of God as a workman, accurately handling the word of truth. Approved of God, accurately handling his word. And so if we're going to accurately handle his word, then we we like Tyndale, we have to know the original languages because there's nuances in those languages that that need to be brought out in the receptive language so they get good, sound word of God and biblical doctrine. And so that's our goal with our 3,000-ish students around the world in our 19 pastoral training centers. We are training them on how to rightly divide the word of God because we don't, we don't want to come in and give them, you know, an English church. We want them to study God's word in the original language, translate it into their own language, and teach the word of God with authorial intent, the way it's intended, so they're not ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And you get a biblical church on the other end. It's it's biblical churches that plant biblical churches. And so that's our goal is to train up men who love Christ, uh who with godly women like Mrs. Fish, who do everything to support and to be a part of their lives no matter what happens. And so it's these guys, these indigenous people. I wish I could tell you some of the places we're in the world. It wouldn't end well for some of them if I did. We are training guys in some of the remotest areas in the world. Many of them speak multiple languages. Um so we can train them a lot of times in English or even in their own language, but they're going to go out and preach in other languages to their to villages and tribespeople that we'll never meet. So that's why this is important. That's why this Tyndale project was so important. It was why it's important for me to communicate nobody can do this alone. This the the goers can't do it alone. Uh of all the biographies that are written, they're they're typically about the goers, and the goers are about 1% of the population. It's the 99% who send them that we don't know much about. And that was my fascination with Tyndale's accomplices.
SPEAKER_02Well, and a real and a real hope and goal for this podcast is to raise up more senders and to show the senders that are sending, there's more you could be doing.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Right? Praise the Lord for what you're doing here. This is awesome. Nobody else is doing this as far as I know.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's you know, the story, the story is not very elegant. I mean, Clint and I are hitting golf balls, and my wife had just said through a podcast, I didn't even know how. And he goes, I know how to do a podcast, and that's how it started. We started the next week. So sometimes when God says go, you go, right? Kind of like you write in this book. Yeah. I want to ask you a different question because you might be the somebody with the authority authority to answer this well. And I think a lot of us are wonder wondering it. The King James version of the Bible would probably be thought by most quote American Christians to be the original Bible or the definitive translation. Um why do you think that is? And what what do we do with that? You know, I I my first real church memories are from Church of Christ. I didn't grow up in church either. But I remember them, you know, it was King James or it was heretical, right? I mean, that was that was at least the take in Brownsboro, Texas, a town of 500 people. Um so tell us why that is, and maybe what should we think about in terms of what translation do you like? What should we be considering?
SPEAKER_00You know, my first exposure to the Bible, I was eight years old, and my grandmother gave me a King James Version, and I started on page one and I made it through about the third chapter, and like I don't understand. I can't understand the language. But but that's just as a child. But the King James Version is an excellent translation, but where does it come from? Eighty-five percent of the King James Version is Tyndale's translation. Eighty-five. Eighty-five? Eighty-five percent comes from Tyndale because Tyndale was so diligent in the Greek language and and ultimately Hebrew. He did the Pentateuch, and then uh those that he discipled came behind him and finished. So the King James is a is a great version. There are some things in there that I I think they didn't get right in the translation, but it doesn't do anything to our doctrine, doesn't do anything to our biblical understanding. It's a great translation, uh, but that's why we study the lem the languages so that we're accurately handling the word of truth.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And the only way we can really do that is to understand that original language. And so we we train up our guys so that they can do that and get it right in their language. That's not to say that we can't reach people that that don't have a written language, it's not to say we can't do that. It's like w we can do better once we get them to be able to do that. We're better equipped too. Yeah. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Your point's well received. I just think it's fun to hear from your perspective as someone who is an authority and a scholar on this subject. Any encouraging words before we ask you to pray for the listeners?
Prayer And Closing Invitation
SPEAKER_00You know what, from a uh a former businessman to current business people and make it even bigger, marketplace professionals. I get questions all the time. Oh, how can I do what you did? How do I go from my career into, you know, uh being a missionary? And while that may be God's plan for you, my challenge for you is to really study the the scriptures in a way where you see so clear, there's so many places in scripture that talk about the importance of work. Um I did my doctoral dissertation on biblical principles for the marketplace, and there's so much out there that would encourage believers. And had I known these things before I know what I know now as a marketplace professional, I think I would have served Christ differently in the marketplace and would have been more intentional about the Great Commission. So my my I I encourage you to serve Christ with your profession, and you're just gonna have to ask him what that looks like and let him guide you. Look for other people that are in your profession, how are they doing it? Maybe you maybe you you you come up with ways you know to understand this. For me, I was a supply chain guy. Well, how did I get these Bibles? So I I put together that background into a theological and historical understanding. So faithfully serve Christ in the marketplace. Ephesians 6 says, serve as unto Christ. Serve as if Jesus is your employer. And if you are leading people in the marketplace, lead them as if you're leasing leading Jesus Himself because that only opens the door to gospel conversation.
SPEAKER_02Eric, I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for laboring and doing this work. Thank you for putting this to paper in a form that we can engage with and read and understand just the significance of the cost, so that we can count the cost. So when many of us get to meet these heroes of the faith in heaven one day, we'll know their story and so that we can respond in kind by paying this forward so that others can engage with the word in their own heart language as well. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00Ah, such an honor, thank you.
SPEAKER_02Eric, we always ask our guests to pray for the listeners at the end of the episode. So would you close us in prayer?
SPEAKER_00That would be an honor, thank you. Oh, Father, what a great privilege it is to be first and foremost your child, to be called by Christ, to uh to know that from John 1 that you gave us to the Son and He won't cast us out. What an encouragement. And you tell us in so many ways throughout Scripture, we do life, we live life, we're to live life for your glory, but we're not to live life to be famous ourselves, because we're just simply a candle. You are the sun. We want to point people to you, and so we can do that by living in accordance with the word of truth, by being a woman of God like Mrs. Fish, who knows that you're in control, she trusts in your sovereignty and your providence, to be a woman like Margaret Van Emerson, who with six children and who lost her husbands two years earlier, can take in a reformer and take care of him, even at the threat of her own life. Lord, for godly women like that, for godly men who will look at um opportunities to serve you well, leaders of major corporations, are they are they really considering their role in the marketplace as it relates to the Great Commission? I pray, Lord, that you would convict hearts, souls, and minds. I pray this book would be one of those uh turning points for them for many as they look at how history has been kind to those who served you well. May we finish well for your glory.
unknownAmen.
SPEAKER_02And amen. Thank you for listening to Unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it more clearly. If this adds value for you, and we hope it does, would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen? Also share with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, D group, wherever you do life. And if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at unreached podcast or email us at unreachpodcast at gmail.com.
