The Ignored Memorial

The great Reformer and Bible translator William Tyndale died a martyr’s death just outside Brussels in Belgium, half a mile (0.8 kilometer) away from a memorial erected in his honor in a city park. Today, that memorial is essentially ignored. William Tyndale is one of the most significant Christian figures of the last five hundred years, and the vast majority of people who walk past his memorial have no idea who or what the memorial is for. I met people living in the tiny English village where Tyndale ministered half a millennium ago who have no idea he ever lived there. In 2002, Tyndale was ranked twenty-sixth in a BBC poll of the hundred greatest Britons to have lived.* That may seem like quite an honor, but the man who translated the Bible into English and irrevocably changed the English-speaking world placed behind John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Princess Diana, and Charles Darwin. Tyndale’s scholarship influenced the King James Bible, which in turn had a huge impact on the English language. It is estimated that 83 percent of the content of the New Testament in the King James Bible was originally the work of William Tyndale and that 76 percent of what is found in the Old Testament translation in the KJV also came from the English Bible translator. “Passover,” “scapegoat,” “my brother’s keeper,” “the salt of the Earth,” “it came to pass,” “the signs of the times,” “let there be light,” “a law unto themselves” and many other phrases come to us from Tyndale’s pen. His faithful work for God continues to bless people all over the world.

A life lived for God’s glory lives on in other lives touched.

Whether remembered or forgotten, William Tyndale’s life still influences our world. And your life, whether widely known or quietly lived, can make a difference forever. Submit your heart to God today, and you can know that like William Tyndale, your influence will tell for eternity.