In an age that can throw away old Bibles, many Australians may not realise that what we take for granted people have died to possess or to see us possess.

Times past have seen people executed for even owning a Bible and there are old Bibles kept in museums that were dipped in the blood of the executed.

One such old Bible is that of William Tyndale. The Tyndale Bible is foundational for the King James Bible and the many good and readable modern translations of the Bible which we can easily purchase.

The Tyndale Bible is credited with being the first English translation and the first to be mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing.

But just like God’s forgiveness comes to us at cost, through the suffering death of Jesus Christ, so the Bible has come to us through the costly sufferings of many.

Tyndale was a man with a passion to see everyone from the ploughboy to the King of England have the Bible in their own language. He spent his life translating most of the Greek and Hebrew Bible into English.

Sadly, his desire to see everyone own a Bible was met with resistance that saw his works burnt and his life become that of an outlaw until his capture in 1535.

Arrested and jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde, outside Brussels, a year later he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. Death did not destroy his life’s work and his dying prayer that the King of England’s eyes would be opened was answered and the Bible produced in English.

The cost of his trial and execution amounted to 407 pounds, nine shillings and sixpence. That goes nowhere close to the cost paid for the Bible being in our hands today nor does it express the Bible’s true value.

It’s difficult for us to believe that the desire for people to have the Holy Bible in their own language could lead to a person’s execution.

However, if the Holy Bible gets in the way of, or exposes, a person’s wickedness then it should not surprise us at all. Humanity has always been good in its attempts to destroy those who would shine a light into the dark places where people hide.

Tyndale was keen to produce the Bible in English so that what people were doing in the dark could be exposed by the light of truth and that those who desired to walk in the truth would have the light to do so.

Like Tyndale, I would like everyone from the average Aussie to the prime minister to have the Bible in their hands and their own language.

God knows how desperate we are to have the light of truth to reveal the dark places in which so much is hidden. 

It may not be my dying prayer but I will pray that the prime minister of Australia’s eyes will be opened.

We are very privileged in Australia to enjoy the freedom of ownership when it comes to the Bible. You can be given a Bible for free or purchase one for a price.

But every Bible delivered to us today comes through a history of costly sufferings to offer us the light of truth and hope in the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its cost is priceless and its value eternal.