William Tyndale – martyred, Oct. 6, 1536

 …the…doctor [unnamed Romanist] burst out into these blasphemous words, “We were better to be without God’s laws than the pope’s.”  …Tyndale, hearing this, full of godly zeal, and not bearing that blasphemous saying replied, “I defy the pope, and all his laws;” and added, ‘if God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than the he did.’

                – John Fox, Book of Martyrs (unknown printer/date, reprint, Grand Rapids:

                                Zondervan Publishing House, 1963), 178.

 

William Tyndale was martyred this date 10/6/1536 at the town of Vilvorde (18 English miles from Antwerp.  His dying words were “Lord!  Open the king of England’s eyes.”

He was a great Bible translator giving us the foundation for much of the classic Authorized Version.  Tyndale was born ca. 1494 near the border of Wales.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer – birth, Feb. 4, 1906

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church.

                Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Cost of Discipleship,  (NY: Macmillan, 1963), 45.

 

Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing.  It may be the ideal way.  It may even lead to martyrdom but it is devoid of all promise.  Jesus will certainly reject it.

            Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Cost of Discipleship,  (NY: Macmillan, 1963), 64.

 

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.

                Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Cost of Discipleship,  (NY: Macmillan, 1963), 69.

Dietrich  Bonhoeffer was born this date (2/4/1906) in Breslau, Poland.  He was a Lutheran minister who readily saw through the wrongness of the churches backing Hitler.  Bonhoeffer was hung for allegedly plotting to “take out” Hitler.  His Cost of Discipleship is very good reading. 

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Robert Frost – death, Jan. 29, 1963

“The Road Not Taken”

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 

Robert Frost died this date (1/29/1963).  Frost was the most important American poet of the 20^th century.  Though I did not get to see him I did hear him once on the radio.  

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C. S. Lewis – death, Nov. 22, 1963

What God begets is God…What God creates is not God.

            – C. S. Lewis, Beyond Personality (NY: Macmillan, 1945), 5.

 

…God has no history.  He is too completely and utterly real to have one.        

            – C. S. Lewis, Beyond Personality (NY: Macmillan, 1945), 17.

 

When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it…It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.  We are like eggs at present.  And you cannot go in indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.  We must be hatched or go bad.

             – C. S. Lewis, Beyond Personality (NY: Macmillan, 1945), 42.

 

It cost God nothing, as far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him the crucifixion.

            – C. S. Lewis, Beyond Personality (NY: Macmillan, 1945), 55.

 

Clive Staples Lewis died this date. He had taught at Oxford (1924-1954) and Cambridge (1954-1963) universities. In his early thirties, Lewis was converted to Jesus Christ. He is best known for his children’s classic The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956), and for Screwtape Letters, Miracles,and Mere Christianity.  Lewis was born 11/29/1898, Belfast, Ireland.

 

 

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