For Grace to Hear and Keep Your Word

Lord, give your people grace to hear and keep your word that, after the example of your servant William Tyndale, we may not only profess your gospel but also be ready to suffer and die for it, to the honour of your name.

(from The Book of Common Prayer, Collect for October 6, quoted in the newly released devotional, Godspeed: Voices of the Reformation, by David Teems. Tyndale was martyred on October 6)

1 comment:

David Teems said...

I still scratch my head (figuratively) at how hidden Tyndale remains, and how underprized. We speak his English. We were nurtured in the Word as he heard it. "Grace to hear," is accurate. There was a powerful empathy between Paul and Tyndale in spite of the centuries that separated them, one that helped shape the English New Testament, Paul rendered to us with a poet's ear. To survive, Tyndale made a point of hiding while he translated the Bible. I think he learned a little too well. And he didn't even put his name on his 1526 New Testament. He said Christ should get the credit. Amazing man. My literary saint. Grateful that he gave us the Shakespeare we love.