Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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Title: John Wycliffe: Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16
Speaker: Pastor Chad Richard Bresson, 10-31-10
Introduction

Acts 5:12-16 And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders
were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomons
Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them
highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both
men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them
on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on
some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to
Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean
spirits, and they were all healed.
John Wycliffe, or as the historian Robert Vaughan records of him, John of Wycliffe, is
considered the morning star of the Reformation. He is called the morning star of the
Reformation because even though he predates the Reformation by about 150 years, his
protest against the Roman Catholic church in England, and his insistence that Gods
Word be accessible in the English language, were disarming ideas that later found
expression in a radical shift in Christianity. His lasting legacy is his contribution both
in his writings and in his life to the idea that would come to be known in the
Reformation as Sola Scriptura.
As we gather on this Reformation Day 2010, 493 years after Martin Luther posted his
95 theses on the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg, it is our purposes this
morning to consider, briefly, not simply Wycliffes legacy in relation to the
Reformation, but our indebtedness to him as children of the Reformers.

Who was Wycliffe?

While we know him as the morning star of the Reformation, he was known to his
friends in his day as Dr. Evangelicus. He was born in or around the year 1324 about
200 miles north of London in a small village named Wycliffe along the Tees River.
Not much is known about his childhood or his parents. What we do know was that his
father was the head of the Wycliffe estate. And they were good Roman Catholics, long
before such a designation was necessitated by divisions with the Anglican church and
protestantism. Some have speculated one of the reasons we know little about
Wycliffes family either from his pen or anyone elses, is because a family whose
affections lie with Rome would not have found pride in a son whose teaching had been
declared heretical by Rome.
By the time Wycliffe was a teenager, he was walking the halls at Oxford and by his
mid 20s, he not only was teaching in those halls, he was ordained a priest. In his early
40s, he entered Englands national consciousness when he helped Parliament thumb
its nose at the Pope. This also put him on the Vaticans radar, and he spent the rest of
his life, more or less, as an enemy of the Holy Roman Empire. Wycliffe was a
Renaissance man, had there been such a designation. As a scholar, he excelled in the
sciences, mathematics, law, philosophy, logic, politics and diplomacy, rhetoric and the
languages, and of course, theology. He is considered the last of the great medievel
scholastics.

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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What got Wycliffe into trouble?

Separation of church and state (Payments from British crown to popes)
His accomplishments as an English statesman and a theologian par excellence are too
numerous for our consideration. In fact, it was his theological prowess that earned him
a place of standing in Parliament and nobility. But there are some things we should
note. Wycliffes studies of the Scriptures and his conviction that Scripture held
supreme authority over both church and state led to his belief that the crown and its
secular state owed no allegiance to the Pope nor monetary compensation to the church.
In defending Parliaments refusal to pay up, Wycliffe wrote one of the early defenses
of what we now know as the separation of church and state.
Clergy poverty
Given the state owed Rome nothing, and given the church should not be building a
kingdom that is of this world, it was also natural for Wycliffe to argue for clergy
poverty. In those days, clergy were given large tracts of what was known as
ecclesiastical properties. These properties, Wycliffe argued, could rightfully
confiscated by the crown. While Wycliffe enjoyed good standing with the church, that
standing eroded over time.
Indulgences
Over time, the arguments against the church became more less political and more
theological. Wycliffe publicly denounced indulgences, saying they were a manifold
blasphemy against Christ. In taking aim at indulgences, he also managed to question
the infallibility of the pope, suggesting that it was indeed possible for the pope to sin.
Eucharist
But what drew the wrath of Rome against Wycliffe and his followers (called Lollards)
wasnt the refusal of parliament to concede to the demands of Rome, or the preaching
and teaching against indulgences and the ultimate authority of the pope, or even his
taking to calling the pope an antichrist, but it was Wycliffes so-called heresy of the
Eucharist that brought Rome down on his head, and eventually led to his friends in the
nobility to even abandon him. More than 150 years before Luther and Calvin,
Wycliffe defiantly challenged the notion that the bread and the wine become the actual
body and blood of Christ. Wycliffes denial of Catholicisms fundamental tenet led to
5 papal bulls from the Pope himself issued against the teaching of Wycliffe and his
followers.
Authority of the Scriptures
What gave Wycliffe boldness was his unwavering conviction that the Scriptures stood
above all things in determining faith and practice. It is apparent from his early days at
Oxford, that Wycliffe was influenced by a growing body of men who were unwilling
to toe the party line when it came to the authority of Rome trumping both reason and
Scripture. It was Wycliffes study of scripture that led to conclude that indulgences
were unscriptural. Nowhere was he able to find from the Bibles pages that the bread
and the wine were the real body and blood of Jesus. In fact, rather than the denial of
the miracle of a change in the wine and the bread being the novelty claimed by Rome,
it was transubstantiation that was a novelty by Scriptures standards. Wycliffe wrote
a theologian is not permitted to devise strange ideas which extend beyond the faith of
catholic (or the church universal) scripture. The pope, yes, even the church itself was

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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to subject itself to and confine its belief to within the Holy Scriptures. For those of us
who grew up as children of the Protestant Reformation, such a thought is as common
as air, or at least it should be. But in the dark ages of the church, Rome had
sufficiently subjected kings and kingdoms to its man-made, man-derived notions of
divine favor. Rome rightly understood Wycliffes assertions on the authority of
Scripture to be a usurpation of its earthly and material power. For Wycliffe, nothing
less than the authority of Christ was at stake in this issue. For he says, the authority of
Holy Scripture, with respect ot the authority of the Head of the church (insert Jesus
here), is of infinitely greater authority than any foreign writing Christ surpasses
every one of his brothers. Thus, Wycliffe rightly understands that Christs authority
is mediated through the Scriptures, not the writings or edicts of corrupt men who
demand money in return for hours or days reduced in purgatory.
Vernacular
But even these claims about the authority of Scripture and the denunciation of the
Pope, as timely and as damaging as they might be in that day, did not in and of
themselves make Wycliffe such a danger to the church that he would gain the personal
attention of the Pope. What made Wycliffe dangerous was the unadulterated gospel in
the common tongue of the people. Wycliffes legacy, as it is typically explained today,
is the translation of the Bible into English. And yes, such a project was controversial
in that day; so much so that the church in that day, as it did in the days of Tyndale,
attempted to eradicate copies of the Word into English. But if we stop there with
Wycliffe, we miss the bigger point and the bigger picture. The reason why the
Scriptures in the common tongue were important to Wycliffe was because Wycliffe
was convinced that the gospel itself must be communicated in the common tongue.
It should be readily apparent why Rome would view the Scriptures in Middle English
a threat to their comfortable status quo. Much of Romes doctrine could not be found
within the pages of Scripture, and Rome knew it. But for almost 500 years, the
Scriptures had not been produced in the common tongue. And more than 120 years
prior, Rome had even gone to the lengths of codifying a Scripture ban that made it a
no-no for the Scriptures to be written in the tongue of the common man. Scripture was
effectively walled off in an inaccessible Latin.
But it wasnt simply the scriptures that were confined and imprisoned in Latin. So too
was the preaching of the Word. The Mass and its homilies were all in Latin. And by
design it was that way. Nothing of theological substance was in the vernacular. [For
those of you kids who are wondering what that big word vernacular is, Ill let you
look it up on KidRex when you get home. When we speak of vernacular, we are
talking about a language that all of us speak and understand every day. Your
vernacular is English. Or better, your vernacular is American English. And if we really
wanted to get specific, for most of you, your vernacular is Midwestern American
English, the kind of English that is the official language of television and radio
journalism. Thats what we mean by vernacular; our everyday language.] The
practice of religion was relegated to an elite few; the doctrines and dogmas of the
church were off limits to the common man. The doctrines of the church were so
closely guarded some were so bold as to claim that making those hidden things known
(such as the question as to just how the bread and the wine become the very real body
of Christ), those holy mysteries in the language of the common man simply
cheapened those mysterious doctrines. Wycliffe saw through this. He was convinced,
and vindicated for the most part, that most priests and theologians in the Catholic

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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church perpetuated this blindness among the people, because they themselves, even
knowing Latin, could not explain or understand those doctrines and dogmas
themselves. The Scriptures, theology, and preaching in the vernacular would not
simply expose the charade of a lack of evidence for many Catholic doctrines, it would
expose the theological ignorance of the Catholic clergy.
As Wycliffe comes on to the scene in the mid-1300s, he is confronted with a
Christianity that requires of its adherent blind, irrational faith. Hearing, they do not
hear. Seeing, they do not understand. The churchs people are going through the
motions, closed off from the very life-blood of their eternal souls. Being baptized in
the font and partaking of the table, the medieval church were eating and drinking
without understanding; they were simply told, this is Christs real body and blood,
but we do not have to tell you how or why that is so. In the end, the people were
being cut off from Christ himself, the Living Manna from heaven who invests His
Word with himself. The gospel goes missing from the very events that exist to
proclaim the gospel, namely the preaching of the Word and the participation in the
bread and the wine.

Acts 4
This church in the dark ages is reminiscent of an event we find in the pages of
Scripture. In fact, this event became what some call, the charter for Wycliffe and his
followers. They reveled in this text because they saw themselves in this text. Acts 4:122.
I dont know if you make it a habit to write in your Bibles. I do. And in this section, I
have highlighted the following phrase: the people. Notice how many times this occurs
as I read this episode from Acts 4 beginning with verse 8.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and
elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man,
by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the
people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you
crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before
you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has
become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is
no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they
were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they
had been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with
them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to
go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, What
shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done
through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.
But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them,
that from now on they speak to no man in this name. So they called them and
commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter
and John answered and said to them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to
listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard. So when they had further threatened them, they
let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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all glorified God for what had been done. For the man was over forty years old
on whom this miracle of healing had been performed.
For our purposes this morning we are not going to unpack all that is going on here in
this passage. What I want us to see this morning is a few of the details of the context
of this story. This story, of course, occurs in the months following Christs death,
resurrection, ascension, and exaltation. Christ has been vindicated. He has ascended
his throne and in his ascent is the descent of the Spirit who, in a blaze of shekinah
glory, breathes life into the visible church at Pentecost. And now, in the wake of this
dual glorious event of Christs exaltation and the descent of the Spirit on the church
the apostles begin, in the words of Acts, to turn their world upside down with the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Through the preaching and teaching of the Word, and the
regenerating work of the Spirit, Christ expands his kingdom in the book of Acts
from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. And as Christ expands his
kingdom in the proclamation of the Word, those who felt threatened by His
proclamation of the gospel are again, increasingly feeling threatened by the gospel
proclamation of the apostles.
And just as many of the controversies of Christs life arose in the aftermath of an
obvious divine miracle of healing meant to be a sign to the Jews, once again, Peter and
John have stepped in it, bringing healing to a man who had been crippled from birth.
In the wake of the healing and the subsequent amazement of the people, Peter
preaches another sermon, a version of the sermon that he preached days or weeks
earlier at Pentecost. While some gladly received the Word preached, the sermon
brings Peter and John into the crosshairs of the same people who put Jesus on trial and
had him crucified. On the witness stand, Peter opens his mouth with another version of
the sermon, this one aimed at the Jewish leaders.
The first thing we want to see in the passage this morning for our purposes is that
Jesus is the real issue here. It isnt simply the apostles who threaten life as the
Sanhedrin knows it. It is Jesus. Again. If they thought that they had rid themselves of
Jesus, they were mistaken. And in the tension between the powers that be and Jesus,
the proclamation of the gospel is at stake, and Jesus life, death, resurrection, and
exaltation continues to make both disciples and enemies. Verse 10: this Jesus, whom
*you* crucified, is the reason this man was healed. This very same Jesus who was
here in this courtroom only weeks ago is the stone you have rejected and he has
become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, no other than this very same
Jesus. Verse 13: the Jewish leaders recognized that Peter and John and the apostles
had been with Jesus. So much meaning and history and salvation, for them and for
us, is invested in that phrase they had been with Jesus. What makes these men
dangerous isnt simply the healing of a lame man, or accusations of crucifying the
messiah. What makes them dangerous is that they have been with Jesus. Jesus makes
them dangerous, investing himself in the proclamation of His Word. Its not what
these men know its who they know that make them dangerous. And at the end of
this episode, the verdict of the council isnt simply stop preaching your message. The
verdict is, stop preaching Jesus.
The second thing we need to see is the people. The people play a central role in
this episode. The Jewish leaders are fearful of the people. This represents a developing
and ongoing power shift in the wake of the proclamation of the gospel. The religious
upheaval that began with Christs proclamation of the inauguration of his kingdom
continues in the preaching and teaching of his followers. Christs intrusion into their

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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status quo culminates in a seismic shift, literally in the tearing of the temple veil
into two. And this intrusion is dramatically altering the landscape, liberating the
people, at least 5000 to this point, from a spiritual darkness and imprisonment a
darkness and imprisonment facilitated in part by those who have dragged Peter and
John into the courtroom. Christs exaltation spells the end of the world as they know
it. Christ is building his kingdom in bringing to life the dead bones of Israel at these
leaders expense. This kingdom message, the gospel proclamation wasnt simply for
the educated elite. It was for *the people*. It was for the common man. Just as Christ
came eating and drinking with the sinners, the common man, so too, his apostles who
are preaching Christ crucified, resurrected and exalted, are feeding Christ to the
common man in the proclamation of the gospel. And the common man, Joe Israelite, is
finding relief from the blindness and the chains that imprisoned him.
The third thing we need to see is the reason Wycliffe and his followers, the Lollards,
saw this passage as their charter: verse 13: when they (the Jewish leaders) saw the
boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men,
they were astonished. This seismic shift due to Christs life, death, resurrection, and
exaltation is turning the religious order on its head. No longer is religion confined to
the ivory tower. No longer is religion for the elite and the well-classed in the pecking
order of an ancient religious institution. In fact, weve already been given a hint that
this is happening because the scene for Peters sermon in the wake of the healing of
the lame man is Solomons portico, not only the largest religious venue of the day, and
not only a gathering spot at the temple for the common man and the nations, but also
the prized territory for the Jewish religious leaders. Christs kingdom expansion, in the
salvation of more than 5-thousand added to a visible church that has sprung to life, is
impingeing on their turf. Christs gospel plays no favorites. More importantly Christs
gospel, in radically altering the status quo brought on by the effects of sin, gives life
and meaning to the common man. Dont read this here as if the disciples were
illiterate. Or even uneducated in the sense that they had no education. What is meant
here is that these men lacked the formal education of those in front of whom they
stand. Just as Christ had done in the temple as a twelve year old boy, they speak in
front of this Jewish council as peers as if they had the formal training and in fact,
speaking of things that are beyond the grasp of many in that room. Peter is
proclaiming Joel 2 as if it has already occurred. That kind of hermeneutic doesnt
compute with this audience.
Wycliffe and the Lollards took solace in this passage. In it they saw themselves, the
common men (even though many of them were formally trained) teaching and
preaching the Word to the common man. And certainly they took solace in the effect
that the proclamation of this gospel was having in kingdom expansion. Go to chapter 5
where we began this morning, verse 12. This paragraph occurs in the aftermath of
Ananias and Sapphira. Thematically it is linked to chapter 4, but instead of occurring
in the wake of healing and blessing and the bringing of the church to life, this
paragraph is in the wake of judgment and death. What Luke intends for his audience is
to see that both the blessings and cursings of the New Covenant accompany the
expansion of the kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel. But in highlighting
the continuing expansion of the kingdom even in the wake of judgment, he goes back
to a recurring theme. Once again, take notice of the phrase, the people, which links
this paragraph with the event in chapter 4:

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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Acts 5:12-16 And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders
were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomons
Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them
highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both
men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them
on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on
some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to
Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean
spirits, and they were all healed.
There is hope for all of us in these verses. Again, I wish we had the time to unpack
these verses. But what I want us to see this morning is the work of the apostles and the
response of the people. The proclamation of the gospel and the accompanying signs
were proclaimed *among* the people. There is a cognitive effort by the apostles to
embed the good news of Jesus Christ with the common man in the venue of the
common man. Christ is using the proclamation of the gospel, and in this instance,
signs and wonders that accompany the gospel, to expand his kingdom. And Christ
intentionally is expanding his kingdom with the common man.
There is, chronicled here, a two-fold result of the upheaval facilitated by a gospel that
knows no boundaries. The first is that the people held the apostles and their message
in high esteem. Ironically, the next verse says multitudes of men and women were
added to the church. Christ is expanding his kingdom in the proclamation of the gospel
not to the elites and the scholars, but to commoners who were considered persona non
grata even by their own religious leaders. This statement added to the Lord occurs in
a series of statements like this throughout the entire book of Acts. In fact, Luke uses
this phrase to link the various events of Acts together. What we need to see is that it is
through the proclamation of the Jesus who has been crucified that the common man is
included in the participation of salvation history. The common man comes to be
included in Gods great plan of salvation in Jesus. The people embracing the gospel in
Acts is in contrast to those who thought of themselves as the inheritors of divine
blessing because of their Jewish heritage. Instead, it is the common man who enjoys
the blessings from heaven in the person of Jesus Christ.
And that leads to the second response of the people here. The people gathered.
While this is a different word than ekklesia, this still conveys the sense of a gathering
or assembly. Christ uses the proclamation of the gospel to assemble for himself, to
gather for himself a visible people on earth a people made up of commoners. The
expansion of the kingdom, the adding to the Lord has a visible, tangible effect of
gathering and by extension this passage, healing. Christ brings healing to the
nations in the gathering of his people, a people constituted of the common man and
in this way, the world of the apostles and the religious establishment (not to mention
the Roman Empire) is being turned upside down. The preaching and the teaching of
the Word to the people is Christs means of expanding His kingdom from Jerusalem
to the ends of the earth.

Why is Wycliffe important?

Preaching in the vernacular. (Preaching)
In reading this section of Acts, Wycliffe and the Lollards understood that in order for
kingdom expansion to take place, and in order for the common man to lay hold of the
good news of Jesus Christ, the message must be understood. Not only must Christ be

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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preached, Christ must be preached in a form that is understandable to the people. That
was not happening as the 13-hundreds rolled around. The message of the gospel, and
even the Word itself, was in a language that was inaccessible to the common man.
Latin was the noose by which the church kept a stranglehold on the gospel. Latin
was the dark veil used by the church to keep the common man in the dark. The gospel,
at least as it was proclaimed in the church, if it was at all, was unavailable in the
vernacular.
Wycliffe and the Lollards changed much of thisand its interesting. If you read the
backstory on the impact of Wycliffe on his time, Wycliffe was savvy enough to use
the vernacular as a technological improvement in an attempt to undermine the
Catholic church and it was only after his death that the Vatican really understood
the magnitude of which Wycliffe was able to propagate Christian doctrine through the
vernacular.
Wycliffe once said that the highest service man may attain on earth is to preach
Gods Word. And one should add, preach Gods Word in the vernacular. Along those
lines he said, if the soul be not in tune with the words, how can the words have
power? Wycliffe understood that our God is the God of communication. In His
Word, Christ, the ever-Living WORD, has revealed God to us. As Jesus ate with
publicans and sinners, so too he has invested His Word with himself as food for the
common manfood that is only accessible in the vernacular. Wycliffe and the
Lollards turned their world upside down and brought the Inquisition down on their
heads (quite literally, in some instances), via the vernacular. And they did so in three
ways. The first, is that long before Wycliffe began translating the Bible into Middle
English, he was preaching in the common language, a practice that was sternly
frowned upon in Rome. Wycliffe understood that the recovery of the gospel that was
inaccessible to the common man meant delivering the Word to the people in a tongue
that they could understand. This practice drew the wrath of Rome, especially when it
was learned that he was attacking Romes views of the Lords Table in his vernacular
sermons.
Writing in the vernacular. (Teaching)
Second, Wycliffe understood, even before Rome did, the power of the vernacular pen.
Wycliffe once commented that preaching involves words that soon dissipate into the
air. Which is why he eventually began putting his thoughts on paper. While a sermon
was once and done, pen and paper allowed ideas to live from generation to generation.
And if that pen and paper were in the vernacular, the power of preaching in the
vernacular was exponentially increased. Using the language of the common man (and
in fact, enhancing the language of the common man along the way.. Wycliffe and the
Lollards had a significant impact on the common tongue of the day), Wycliffe
propagated the gospel beyond the bounds of his church, beyond the walls of Oxford.
Their books and tracts spread even beyond Englands boundaries, impacting John Hus
and others who gave their lives in the recovery of the gospel from the dark ages and a
church intent on hiding its doctrines and dogma from the people.
Translation of the scriptures. (Word)
And last, Wycliffes passion to make the gospel accessible to the common man via the
common tongue fueled his desire and his effort to get the Bible out of the Latin and
into the English. I think most of us are familiar with this part of Wycliffes story.
Wycliffe believed the Bible to be inherently vernacular. The idea of the language of

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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the common man is embedded in Scripture. The Greek of the New Testament is
predominantly the Greek of the common man.
But even this view of Wycliffe needs a bit of adjustment in our thinking, especially as
we consider Acts 4 and 5 and the role that passage had on Wycliffe and his followers.
We tend to think of Wycliffes translation efforts as being motivated by a desire to
make sure that the common man understood the lines he was being fed from the
church at Rome. And indeed this is true. This is what made Wycliffes early
postulation of the Reformation doctrine Sola Scriptura a dangerous yet contagious
threat to the establishment. It is one thing to claim the Scriptures as the sole authority
of faith and practice. It is another to energize that idea by placing such an authoritative
weapon in the hands of the common man. Place the living and active word in the
hands of the people and watch the institutions power crumble.
And in our day, we even give the effort to translate into the common tongue an
individualistic twist when we say that Wycliffe (and Tyndale) desired for every man to
have the Bible not simply the elites in the church hierarchy as if Wycliffe was
driven by a sense of class warfare. While all of those things are true, Wycliffe was
acutely aware that the Word was life-giving. Life transforming, or in his words, the
Word is life-seed, begetting regeneration, and spiritual life. Wycliffe was consumed
with the idea that the Word was manna from heaven. Christ feeds himself in the
understandable, vernacular Word, and if that Word is to do its work of kingdom
expansion through the gospel, it must be understood by the common man. Place the
living and active Christ, who is invested in his word, in the hands of the people and
watch the church spring to life out of the dark ages.

Conclusion
Those questions that confront Wycliffe sometimes are lost on us today. We must ask
them. Can there be life from the heavens if there is no understanding? Is it enough to
partake of the table and not know its meaning?
Do we appreciate our English Bibles? Do we realize the importance of English to our
participation in redemptive history?
Do we realize how important the vernacular is to our salvation? Do we realize how
important the vernacular is to our very existence as a living and breathing organism in
the new creation? Do we recognize the importance of the vernacular to our
participation in the very thing we call church and its one-anothering community. I
think we as Baptists in America, tend to either forget or downplay the sustenance the
Word provides to the corporate body. And in doing so, we also forget the necessity of
the vernacular to that life sustenance. If the Word cannot be understood, the Word
cannot feed us Christ. Were all too familiar with how shall they hear without a
preacher, but not cognizant enough that hearing involves understanding and
understanding necessitates vernacular communication.
We live in an era in which the Bible is the most common book in many of our houses.
How many of us, at some time this week, were somewhere and we realized we left our
Bible on the seat of the car? On the kitchen counter at home? On the stack of books?
The point here isnt to make us feel guilty, but to recognize that we enjoy an immense
benefit at this stage in redemptive history. For most of us, our entire Christian
experience has been lived in the vernacular. We dont know what its like to have to
sit week in and week out under preaching in a tongue we dont understand, reading a

Title: John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation

Text: Acts 4:1-22, 5:12-16

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Word that is unintelligible to us. And in this era, if that is occurring it isnt a second
thought for us to do the due diligence of learning that tongue so that we can
understand the sermon and read the Word. Even our mentality in bridging that kind of
linguistic gap is different than it was 700 years ago. If we have a vernacular problem,
we simply bridge it. In fact, it doesnt even take due diligence these days; we simply
cut and paste into Google Translate, and voila, we comprehend, we understand in
tongues foreign to us.
More importantly, do we understand that without the vernacular, we are cut off from
Jesus, the Manna from Heaven? Christ does not feed us of his life giving and life
transforming self in a vacuum. If Christ is going to feed us that which is more
important than the bread on our tables, that which proceeds from the mouth of God, it
must be intelligible, it must be understandable. As we pause this Reformation Day
2010 to remember those who have recovered the gospel and delivered to us down
through the ages the faith once for all delivered to the saints, let us remember Wycliffe
and the Lollards and Tyndale who understood that this gospel is inherently tied to the
vernacular. Let us gaze in wonder at the Christ who, through the efforts of those like
Wycliffe and Tyndale, feeds us of himself week in and week out in the preaching and
teaching of the Word in proclamation and the Lords Table in the English language.
All over the earth today, the gospel is being preached and understood, the Word is
being read and comprehended in hundreds and thousands of languages. Christ, is
feeding himself to His people, in the vernacular.