There is no wrong time for world evangelization. And there is no wrong time for theological clarification. If you wait for the optimal time to become a missionary or to send a missionary, you won’t be one or send one. If you wait for the optimal time to get theological clarity about what the Bible really teaches, you won’t get it. There is no optimal time because sin, Satan, sickness, and sabotage have made certain that there is no optimal time to know or spread the truth. If knowing and spreading happen in your life, it will be because you looked sin, Satan, sickness, and sabotage in the face and said, “I’m going through you. In the name of Jesus, in the power of his Spirit, in the joy of the gospel, and for the glory of God, I’m going through you. And you will not stop me.”

I would like to motivate you — I pray that God will use me to motivate many of you — to give your life to world evangelization and theological clarification in the most inhospitable, unsuitable, uncongenial, forbidding times. If you wait for the ideal moment — personally, relationally, economically, globally — you won’t know what you ought to know, and you won’t go where you ought to go. There is only one kind of time for knowing and going, and it is always, at some level, inhospitable, unsuitable, uncongenial, forbidding.

So, the lesson that I want to draw out of the life of William Tyndale is that he carried out his theological clarification and his Bible translation in what most of us would consider impossible circumstances — the kind of circumstances that would surely justify putting theological study and Bible translation on hold while you just keep your nose above water. You just stay alive on the run.

Tyndale the Theologian

Tyndale’s incredibly productive twelve years (from the age of 30 to 42) working on theological clarification and Bible translation were spent in exile on the European continent. I’m including theological clarification because most people don’t know that Tyndale was a theologian — a theological Reformer — alongside his Bible translation. I have a three-volume set of Tyndale’s theological works, totaling over 1,200 pages. David Daniell wrote,

It is possible . . . to write about Tyndale as polemicist, as propagandist, as political reformer, as moralist, as theologian, as historian, as enemy of the institutions of the church: yet he first presents himself as a working translator of the Scriptures. It cannot be right to see him as being anything else more important than that. He translated two-thirds of the Bible so well that his translations endured until today, a labor so great that that list of secondary definitions must surely dwindle by comparison. (William Tyndale, 121)

Secondary, yes, but oh my — how significant those writings were in his own day. If Tyndale had never translated a page of the Bible, he would have been hunted down and killed by the Roman Catholic Church because of his writings in support of Luther’s teaching. Anthony Kenny wrote,

When he renounced the doctrine of transubstantiation, friars, noblemen, and bishops all turned against him, and the University which had sheltered him offered him a home no longer. (The Bible in English, 72–73)

Henry VIII was angry with Tyndale mainly for believing and promoting the theological clarification of Martin Luther’s Reformation teachings. In particular, he was angry because of Tyndale’s book Answer to Sir Thomas More, who had who helped Henry VIII write his repudiation of Luther called Defense of the Seven Sacraments. Thomas More was thoroughly Roman Catholic and radically anti-Reformation, anti-Luther, and anti-Tyndale. So, Tyndale had come under excoriating criticism by Thomas More. In fact, Daniell said Thomas Moore had a “near-rabid hatred” for Tyndale and published three long responses to him totaling nearly three-quarters of a million words. This was not mainly about Bible translation. This was about truth clarification. And remember, these are political leaders who at the snap of their fingers could kill Tyndale with impunity — if they could find him.

“There is no wrong time for world evangelization.”

This was all theological clarification — almost all of it written while he was in exile on the Continent, moving from place to place to avoid arrest. He had left England probably in April 1524 when he was 30 and never returned home till he was martyred at age 42 in 1536, just north of Brussels, after twelve years in exile and in hiding. The charge that sealed his execution was not Bible translation, though that might have sufficed, but heresy, not agreeing with the holy Roman Emperor — in a nutshell, following the teachings of Martin Luther.

Ministry on the Run

I don’t mean to downplay the achievement or the danger that Bible translation played in Tyndale’s life. It is almost incomprehensible to us how viciously opposed the Roman Catholic Church was to the translation of the Scriptures into English. In response to John Wycliffe’s work to put the Bible in English from the Latin, the Roman Catholic parliament passed the law de Haeretico Comburendo — “on the burning of heretics” — to make heresy punishable by burning people alive at the stake. The Bible translators were in view.

Then in 1408, the Constitutions of Oxford stated,

We therefore decree and ordain, that no man, hereafter, by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue . . . and that no man can read any such book . . . in part or in whole. (God’s Bestseller, xxii)

John Bale (1495–1563) “as a boy of 11 watched the burning of a young man in Norwich for possessing the Lord’s prayer in English. . . . John Foxe records . . . seven Lollards burned at Coventry in 1519 for teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer in English” (The Obedience of a Christian Man, 202).

Tyndale hoped to escape this condemnation by getting official authorization for his translation in 1524. But he found just the opposite and had to escape from London to the Continent for the rest of his life. He gives us some glimpse of those twelve years as a fugitive in Germany and the Netherlands (in one of the very few personal descriptions we have) in 1531. He refers to

. . . my pains . . . my poverty . . . my exile out of mine natural country, and bitter absence from my friends . . . my hunger, my thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere encompassed, and finally . . . innumerable other hard and sharp fightings which I endure. (William Tyndale, 213)

All these sufferings came to a climax on May 21, 1535, in the midst of Tyndale’s great Old Testament translation labors, when he was betrayed in Antwerp by his supposed friend Henry Philips. He was taken to Vilvorde Castle six miles north of Brussels, where he stayed for eighteen months until his death.

No Hiatus from Holy Work

You might think that, imprisoned and waiting for your possible death, you would take a break from theological clarification and Bible translation and hope for a more optimal time, or think you’ve done enough. That didn’t happen. I think this letter is one of the most moving things I have ever read and captures what I mean by doing theological clarification and Bible translation in the most inhospitable circumstances. He wrote this to an unnamed officer of the castle. Here is a condensed version of Mozley’s translation of the Latin:

I beg your lordship, and that of the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here through the winter, you will request the commissary to have the kindness to send me, from the goods of mine which he has, a warmer cap; for I suffer greatly from cold in the head, and am afflicted by a perpetual catarrh, which is much increased in this cell; a warmer coat also, for this which I have is very thin; a piece of cloth too to patch my leggings. My overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woolen shirt, if he will be good enough to send it. I have also with him leggings of thicker cloth to put on above; he has also warmer night-caps. And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening; it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark. But most of all I beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary, that he will kindly permit me to have the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew dictionary, that I may pass the time in that study. In return may you obtain what you most desire, so only that it be for the salvation of your soul. But if any other decision has been taken concerning me, to be carried out before winter, I will be patient, abiding the will of God, to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ: whose spirit (I pray) may ever direct your heart. Amen. W. Tindalus. (William Tyndale, 379)

So, the lesson I am taking away from Tyndale’s life is that his accomplishments in theological clarification and Bible translation are astonishing not only because of their faithfulness and excellence, but because they were achieved without waiting for the optimal moment. There wasn’t an optimal moment in his life.

Hindrances to World Evangelization

Let’s turn from Tyndale to the Bible and our own circumstances as we hear the call of world missions. Let Tyndale’s experience put fiber in your faith and stir you up not to wait for the optimal season of your life to be as engaged as God calls you to be in the task of theological clarification and Bible translation — or whatever dimension of world missions God calls you to.

Let me call your attention to some global crises that might make you think this is not an optimal time for doing world evangelization or Bible translation or even focused effort at theological clarification.

In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the killed and wounded are approaching one million people. Israel is now fighting wars on two fronts, with Hamas and Hezbollah, with Iran about to intervene. China, for the first time in decades, several weeks ago launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. Boko Haram in Burkina Faso recently killed 26 Christians as they worshiped — and a hundred others. Over half of Sudan’s 46 million people suffer from acute hunger because of civil war. Civil wars rage in Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Haiti, and at least ten other nations. One hundred million people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including forty million refugees, 40 percent of which are under eighteen. On the home front, in the United States since 2017 there have been half a million opioid-related deaths. And the moral degeneracy embraced by our highest leaders and aspiring leaders is appalling.

I focus on those big, global, nonoptimal circumstances for two reasons. One is to draw attention to the fact that if every one of those crises were to go away tonight, the real-life, close-to-home reasons for not throwing yourself into world missions would be just as great. You are one heartbeat away from death every moment, and you have no control over God’s decision about how long you live (James 4:15). The pain in your chest might be a heart attack in the making. The ache in your hip might be bone cancer. The phone ringing might be the death of your children or parents — or worse, their divorce. The note you’re about to open might be that your twenty-year-old daughter has decided she is not a Christian and finds better community with her LGBTQ friends. Or you look in the mirror and say, “You are not fit to even consider Christian service.” Most of the hindrances to devoting ourselves to the nudgings of God’s Spirit in world missions do not come from world events; they come from the nonoptimal circumstances of our personal lives.

Hostility in the End Times

But the other reason I focused my list on global crises is that they describe the world in which the Great Commission is going to be finished. God is not going to make an era toward the end of history when the nations will be hospitable to the reception of the gospel. Most of the unreached peoples in our day live in cultures that are hostile to the gospel. They are not waiting with open arms. But that is the world in which the mission will be finished. Jesus said,

You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9–14)

Let this nonoptimal description of the world in which the gospel will reach the nations — leading up to the second coming of Christ — land on you with its proper force. Count them:

1. God’s emissaries will be hated by all nations.

2. Many Christians will fall away. They will deconvert, and we will call them nones — those who declare no religion.

3. Christians will betray one another and hate one another — and the strategy of Satan here is to cause other believers to say, “The faith is failing. It must not be real. If the Christians are betraying each other at home, what do I have to say to the world?” You need to know how the Bible describes the end if you are going to escape that temptation.

4. Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray — books, articles, podcasts, TikTok reels, and movies, giving voice to many false prophets. They will be causing people to think, “We’re not winning. We’re not winning.” Win what? The Christianization of the world? That’s not in the Bible — till Jesus comes! He will do it. And if you want to know how, read 2 Thessalonians 1.

5. Lawlessness is multiplied. The troops from Kenya in Haiti right now are outnumbered four hundred to fifteen thousand gang members. It is not hard to imagine urban centers in America being little Haitis. If you live there, will you stay true to your calling to the nations? Or will you say, “This is not an optimal time”?

6. The love of many will grow cold. You travel from church to church hoping to find warmth and zeal for world missions, but what you find is that love for the nations — indeed, for the Lord — has grown cold.

And when Jesus had spoken those six inhospitable circumstances for the completion of the Great Commission, the next words out of his mouth were, “And this gospel of the kingdom [this good news of the kingdom] will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

He did not say that the gospel of the kingdom might be proclaimed throughout the whole world. He did not say there might be a testimony to all the nations. He did not say that this proclamation and testimony might usher in the end and the coming of Jesus. Matthew 24:14 is not the Great Commission. That comes four chapters later. This is the great promise, the great certainty, the great absolute.

“If you wait for the optimal time to get theological clarity about what the Bible really teaches, you won’t get it.”

The Great Commission is a test of our obedience (most explicitly). This is a test of our faith. Do we believe him? Do we believe that in spite of being hated by all nations, in spite of many Christians deconverting and falling away, in spite of Christians betraying one another and false prophets persuading millions, in spite of lawlessness being multiplied in cities and nations, and in spite of the spreading of Christian coldness, there will be churches and Christians and missionary senders and goers who are white-hot for Jesus, and who are torching the glacier that is spreading over the world, and who will finish the mission?

Sustained by the Gospel Proclaimed

They will be sustained by the very good news that they carry. That’s why William Tyndale was both a truth clarifier and a Bible translator. It was the reality of biblical truth — the gospel of the kingdom — that sustained him. You might think that, living in exile, driven from place to place, in danger of betrayal, working in nonoptimal circumstances, he would develop an austere demeanor and a burdensome view of the gospel. Here’s how he defined the gospel:

Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word and signifieth good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy. (Selected Writings, 33)

That’s Tyndale writing in 1530 in exile at the age of 36. Tyndale was driven to put the Bible into the vernacular of every language because of the gospel. And yes, not just English, but every language. He wrote in the preface to his New Testament,

Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as widely as possible. . . . I wish that they might be read and known, not merely by the Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens. (William Tyndale, 67)

Without the Bible, there would be no pure, enduring gospel. And without the gospel, there is no escape from universal bondage of the will.

[No] creature can loose the bonds, save the blood of Christ only. . . . When the gospel is preached, [it] openeth our hearts and giveth us grace to believe, and putteth the spirit of Christ in us: and we know him as our Father most merciful, and consent to the law and love it. (Selected Writings, 37, 40)

William Tyndale was sustained in a life of theological clarification and Bible translation through unremitting, nonoptimal, inhospitable, forbidding circumstances, because he was thrilled by the power of the gospel to set people free from condemnation and make them glad in God. He lived on it and would say with the apostle, “In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4).

So, I close where I began. If you wait for the optimal time to become a missionary, you won’t be one. If you wait for the optimal time to get theological clarity about what the Bible really teaches, you won’t get it. There is no optimal time for either. Circumstances will almost always say, “Not now.” And faith will say, “I’m going through you. In the name of Jesus, in the power of his Spirit, in the joy of the gospel, and for the glory of God, I’m going through you. And you will not stop me.”