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William Tyndale was an ordained deacon and priest in the Roman Catholic church.[1] Once he became Protestant, his pastoral heart never went away. While in exile, as he worked on his translations he continued to preach, visit homes, and help the sick.[2] In his theological writings he had many things to say about what makes a true preacher and how to identify a false one. This subject warrants multiple articles, starting with an assessment of Tyndale’s comments on preaching. My prayer is that this focus on Tyndale’s view of preaching will help modern preachers in their task, and encourage laymen to turn to the Scriptures as they test all things (Acts 17:11). The following remarks will come from William Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528).

 

The Preacher Must Preach the Whole Bible

William Tyndale read the Bible as a unified whole, however, the Scriptures could essentially be understood in two pieces–Law (Old Testament) and Gospel (New Testament). Tyndale was clear that it is required of every preacher to preach both, never neglecting one or the other. Indeed, a preacher exercises the very keys of the kingdom when he does so. Tyndale writes that the keys “are no carnal things, but spiritual” and these keys are “nothing else save knowledge of the law, and of the promises or gospel” (1:205).

The preacher is to first preach the Law which condemns the conscience and leads men to repentance. Indeed, the Law is preached “to utter sin, to kill the consciences, to damn our deeds, to bring to repentance, and to drive unto Christ; in whom God hath promised His favour, and forgiveness of sin, unto all that repent and consent to the law that it is good” (1:193). When the Law is preached, we have no room to pretend that our own works are sufficient for our right standing before God. According to Tyndale, this is the reason the law must be preached. When the Law is faithfully proclaimed it is enough to rob “the sophisters, work-holy, and justifiers in the world” (1:193) of any boast they may have.

The preacher must then bring the promises of the Gospel to the heart. While the law binds the conscience with guilt, the promises “loose as many as repent and believe” (1:205). Whenever the promises of the Gospel are believed, “then doth God’s truth justify thee, that is, forgiveth thee, and receiveth thee to favour, for Christ’s sake” (1:193). In this way, the sinner is brought to face the reality of their sins through the law, and then the fullness of God’s grace in Christ in the Gospel.

 

Conclusion

In our modern age we have an allergy to rules or law in the church. This partly comes from an overly sensitive fear of legalism, and partly from a fear of man which renders us timid at the idea of being too mean or harsh. This is a weakness in our time, and we would do well to heed the preaching advice found in William Tyndale (and later Reformed writers). The law must be preached so that conviction of sin may take its full effect. But after this, the promises of the Gospel ought to be given, so that the sinner knows how they might be forgiven of their transgressions and brought into fellowship with the Triune God.

 

[1] A great historical study on the ordination of Tyndale was done in Andrew Brown’s dissertation: Andrew J. Brown, William Tyndale on Priests and Preachers: With New Light on His Early Career (London: Inscriptor Imprints, 1996). Indeed, it was for this reason that Tyndale was strangled before he was burned at the stake on the day of his execution.

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[2] It is for this reason that scholars like Donald Dean Smeeton has called Tyndale a “preacher-theologian.” Donald Dean Smeeton, Lollard Themes in the Reformation Theology of William Tyndale, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies VI (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1986), 13. John Foxe records Tyndale’s passion for preaching in his early days both in the Welch house and while he was in London. John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Stephen Reed Cattley (London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1830), V:117. Likewise, Tyndale wrote to his friend John Frith in 1533 to instruct him on how he might preach with power, and thus “make the right use of preaching” for the sake of the church. This letter is recorded in Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, V:132–34. Timothy George has recorded the schedule that Tyndale kept while he lived in Antewerp. It can be found in Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, 2nd ed. (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2013), 371.

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About the Author:  Jared Ebert serves as pastor at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Williamstown, KY.