The Translator They Burned at the Stake

In October 1536, William Tyndale was led to a stake outside Brussels, strangled, and burned. His crime was translating the Bible into English so that, as he once told a clergyman, "the boy that driveth the plough" could know Scripture as well as any priest. Church authorities had banned his work, burned his books, and hunted him across Europe for nearly a decade. When Tyndale died, his final words were a prayer: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."

The establishment had rejected him utterly. Yet within three years of his execution, King Henry VIII authorized the Great Bible — built overwhelmingly on Tyndale's translation. When the King James Version appeared in 1611, scholars estimate that nearly eighty percent of its New Testament came directly from Tyndale's pen. The very words the authorities tried to destroy became the cornerstone of English-speaking Christianity for centuries.

The psalmist knew this pattern well. "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes." God has a long history of taking what the powerful discard and making it foundational. What religious leaders condemned as dangerous, the Almighty used to place His Word into the hands of millions.

Whatever you have endured — the rejection, the dismissal, the doors slammed shut — remember that the Lord's steadfast love endures forever. He wastes nothing. Give thanks to Him, for He is good.