8 August, 2013 A.D. – This time in history.

Genesis 1:2a King James Version – And the earth was without form, and void…

Creation, mankind, nations, the church, families and individuals ALL have a history.

“Most history is untold and unknown to most.

We look at history as a timeline of what someone has suggested has relevance to our own lives.  Take just this particular day from American history for example.  August 8, 1635 AD, Roger Williams was sentenced to banishment by the British colony of Massachusetts for his differing religious views. In exile he founded Rhode Island on principles of freedom of conscience.

Among other issues of the time, Christians were divided not only as Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Catholic minorities in the Colonies, but Protestants were divided in Europe and the New World over other doctrine, including use of the Geneva Bible or the King James Bible.

In the Empire of Great Britain, Prince James became King of Scotland on 24 July, 1567, at the age of 13 months, after his mother Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate. Mary fled to England, where she was imprisoned for the next 19 years. Mary and Elizabeth were heirs through different mothers, among the six wives of: “Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head”

When Elizabeth I died childless, James inherited the throne. He married Anne of Denmark and fathered several children, dissolved Parliament in 1622, and allegedly had sexual relationships with both women and men.  King James, who also authored several books about himself, was quoted as saying, “Monarchy is the greatest thing on earth. Kings are rightly called gods since just like God they have power of life and death over all their subjects in all things. They are accountable to God only … so it is a crime for anyone to argue about what a king can do.”

8 August, 1635 A.D, is just twelve years after King James dissolved Parliament and Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

You may know well the partial histories of Henry VIII creating new political alliances that broke relationship between the British Throne and the Roman Catholic Church.  You may know of the previous separation of Protestants under Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church.

One related history of the English Bible is that of William Tyndale.  He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.

William Tyndale’s New Testament, 1525-26, was defiance of protest against Papal authority.  It was printed in Germany, where Martin Luther’s New Testament was first printed in 1529. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale’s forbidden books.  Having God’s Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church’s income and power would crumble.

Tyndale’s flight was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11 years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of cotton and sacks of flour. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned for over 500 days of horrible conditions. He was tried for heresy and treason in a ridiculously unfair trial, and convicted.

Tyndale was then strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. His last words were, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” This prayer was answered three years later, in the publication of King Henry VIII’s 1539 English “Great Bible”.  (In 1539, Spain annexes Cuba and Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain.)

The great American Empire of the 20th century little remembers that England and Spain, Empires of the day, would be divided and fall, as had the great empires of earlier history, most notably Rome.  At the center of this great history of the conquest and sin of man, God remains sovereign over Creation, mankind, nations, the church, families and individuals.

To be continued…