Tyndale the Expositor-Translator
William Tyndale was not just a translator, he was a pastor-expositor-translator and author. In 1531, Tyndale printed “An Exposition upon the First Epistle of John”. Tyndale would take anywhere from one to three sentences and exposit them. Daniell writes of Tyndale the expositor, he “expounds, comments and teaches…the reader comes away at the end knowing a great deal about what is in the New Testament, and about how it meshes with, and challenges, the individual life of the believer” (Daniell, 220).Where are the expository pastor-translators? We’ve seen Tyndale preach, teach, translate and now we’ve seen Tyndale write expository helps. Tyndale wrote theological defenses appropriate to his day (e.g. that faith must be present for the Sacraments to be a “rich experience” (Daniell, 222)). He wrote on justification. He exposited the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). He wrote prologues to his translations, and then expanded them into books, such as “The Pathway to the Holy Scripture,” in which he provided readers “a further guide to reading Scripture" (Daniell, 220).Tyndale was not simply a linguist, he was a theologian with a pastor’s heart. He desired to give people the Word of God in the language they could understand. But he also labored to teach people how to read Scripture, and provided books and tracts for teaching believers the Scriptures. Tyndale was a gift from God, to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4).We hope and pray that more laborers will be sent into God’s harvest (Matt. 9:37), and that these laborers will be pastors who are theologians that can come alongside linguistically trained translators to not only ensure a good translation, but can then deliver God’s Word to both the lost and to God’s people, in every tribe and language across the globe.Pray for God to raise up more pastors, expositors, and theologians who can help join translation teams. See our Partner Page to support men like this.