Friday, May 30, 2014

DEVOTION: What Became of My Offering? ~ by Karen Rees

READ Luke 21:1-4. 

My husband and I have around a dozen English-language Bibles on our bookshelves. Times certainly have changed. Prior to the printing press, only the rich could afford the hand-copied scriptures. These were in Latin. In 1408, in reaction to Wycliffe and the Lollards, England's church hierarchy had made it illegal to produce an unauthorized English Bible.

Knowing the power of Scripture to change lives, in 1523 William Tyndale asked permission to make a vernacular Bible. The Church said “no”. Undeterred, Tyndale sailed to the Continent, produced the first printed English New Testament and saw it smuggled into England.

The Church burned every copy they could find. In 1536 they finally burned Tyndale.

When Henry VIII broke with Rome, he lifted the ban on English Bibles. Coverdale's Bible, the Great Bible of 1539, the Matthew Bible and many others were the result. Eventually, in 1611, the Authorized or King James Version was produced.

But what became of Tyndale's still-illegal New Testament and the Old Testament portions he'd translated before his death?

His translations were so good that translators, from Coverdale on, copied them nearly word for word into their legal Bibles. These same Bibles, along with Greek and Hebrew scriptures, were later used to make the King James Version. Scholars today say that 70% of the KJV Bible, and over 80% of its New Testament, is Tyndale's translation.

For nearly 400 years this Bible brought people closer to God and changed their lives. Tyndale's sacrifice wasn't wasted.

I doubt that any of us, even today's Bible translators, will face the challenges, and the dangers, that Tyndale faced. But we all know the struggle of sitting alone at our keyboards with a prayer on our lips as we search for just the right words to express the message in our hearts.

The devotions we write, the novels with a spiritual message, the articles and blogs are our offerings to God, the best we can give.

We are like the poor widow putting her last two tiny coins into the temple treasury. She knew how small her offering was compared to the bags of coins others dropped in. She probably went home to her skimpy meal, if she had one, regretting that she'd not had more to give.

But Jesus saw the situation differently. The issue was not the size of her offering. It was the intent of her heart. No doubt the poor widow went to her grave never knowing that her story would inspire people throughout the ages.

Small though it may be, when we give our best work with a humble heart, we can have confidence that God will use it for his good purpose. He did that with the widow's offering and with Tyndale's. He can do it with ours.

Karen Rees, with her second-generation missionary husband Benjamin, has served in Hong Kong since 1975. Besides her involvement in the mission work, Karen loves history, quilting and writing. They have two children, Matthew and Megan, and one grand-daughter, Hadessah.


Her historical fiction novel, THE RUBY RING, is set against the backdrop of Tyndale's battle for an English Bible. The book is a 2014 Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in the Religious Fiction category.(Congratulations Karen!)

THE RUBY RING can be purchased in paperback or eBook from Amazon.com and many other online bookstores.

Visit Karen on her author page on Facebook.

Watch her book trailer, The Ruby Ring Trailer.

16 comments:

  1. Karen, lovely post :) I find church history fascinating, and William Tyndale's story is inspiring.

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  2. I used Tyndale's translation in my Glastonbury Grail series since it is what my 16th c characters would be reading. Fascinating how it has influenced translations ever since.

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    1. History is full of fascination - for those of us who love history. Those who don't, certainly miss out on some great stories.

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  3. The sadness of today is the ease of getting Bibles and the lack of zeal in reading it in our Weastern culture. However, God's Word isn't chained. Thanks for your Devotional highlighting the cost some like Tyndale paid so that we today can know the Lord in our heart language. Remember those who are doing a similar work as Tyndale in other cultures and languages.

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    1. You are right that God's Word isn't chained. He also isn't restrained by time or affected by differing time zones. I'm answering these messages in the late morning and afternoon of June 3 in Hong Kong but the automated time stamp says I'm a night owl. :-) , .

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  4. What a beautiful word of encouragement. Thanks so much for sharing. And it humbles me to know that there are so many people today who do sacrifice daily for their faith.

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  5. Karen, thank you. Beautifully said! We have such a rich heritage of the faithful before us -- a cloud of witnesses, as it were -- that we should never lack for examples to follow.

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    1. Yes, history is filled with examples - both ones to follow ond others to avoid.

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  6. Thank you Karen for this message of encouragement. Thank you too for your first but hopefully not last devotional message for ICFW.

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    1. Thanks for the opportunity to do this one.

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  7. Lovely to meet you, Karen. Thanks for reminding us not only about the sacrifices of heroes like Tyndale, but about the value of doing our little bit faithfully.

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    1. A Christian must first be faithful in the little things. Otherwise, how can God trust us to be faithful with the big things?

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  8. Thanks so much, Karen, for a truly informative and encouraging blog. I used to be a language teacher and also studied quite a bit of Greek at theological college, but my mind boggles at the task Tyndale faced in undertaking that first English translation.

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    1. Thanks for your comments. You're right. What Tyndale faced, and accomplished, does boggle the mind.

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