There is a team of laborers with shovels digging into the frozen earth. Standing over them is a whole retinue of high-ranking church officials. Bishop Fleming is there, presiding over the operation, his eyes fixed on the dirt. They aren't digging a fresh grave, though. They are opening an old one. They are looking for a specific skeleton, a man who has been dead for 44 years. That is nearly two generations. By this point, the flesh is long gone, and the wooden coffin has probably rotted away into nothing. They are literally sifting through the soil and roots to find the bones of a quiet Oxford professor named John Wycliffe.
Now, usually, if you have a grievance with someone, you settle it while they’re alive. Or if you’re petty, you bad-mouth them after they die. But to dig a man up four decades later implies a level of hatred that transcends death. It wasn’t just hatred, though; it was fear. This wasn't random vandalism; it was a strictly legal proceeding. Pope Martin V and the Council of Constance had issued a formal decree declaring that Wycliffe’s body had to be removed from consecrated ground because they believed it was polluting the very earth it lay in.
They find the bones. They don’t just toss them in a ditch. They build a pyre, take the skeletal remains of arguably the most brilliant theologian in England, and burn them to ash. They crush the charred bones into powder and cast the ashes into the River Swift. They wanted to delete him—physically, spiritually, and historically. They wanted to ensure no pilgrim could ever visit his grave, no shrine could ever be built. They wanted to wash him out of history.
What could a man have done to deserve being treated like a criminal nearly half a century after his funeral? Was he a murderer? Did he try to assassinate the king? No. In the eyes of the church, he did something far worse. He was a translator. His core crime, the thing that made him the "master of error" in the eyes of Rome, was that he dared to turn the Latin chains of the Bible into the English language. He believed that an English plowman should be able to read the words of Christ just as well as the Pope. And for that, they burned his bones.
We are talking about John Wycliffe today, a scholar from Oxford who was the "Morning Star of the Reformation."
When we zoom out from the perspective of God sitting on the throne in heaven, we can see that God was working behind the scenes to cure the "famine of the word." As the prophet Amos declared:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11 KJV).
During the Dark Ages, there was a literal famine for the Word of God. Only the priests were able to handle it, and even they often didn't know what it was actually saying because it was in a language no one spoke: Latin. Imagine going to church every week, terrified of hell, desperate for salvation, and the entire service is muttered in a language you don't speak. You are entirely dependent on what the priest tells you. If you can't understand the source code yourself, you have to trust the developer. And in the 14th century, the "developer"—the institutional church—was having serious performance issues.
The Perfect Storm of Crisis
Wycliffe wasn't attacking a strong, credible institution. He was exposing cracks that were already visible to everyone. The 14th century was a mess of institutional, spiritual, and social collapse:
- The Western Schism (1378–1417): The papacy split. There were two Popes—one in Rome and one in Avignon—excommunicating each other. For ordinary believers, this destroyed the clarity of spiritual authority. Who do you obey when God’s representatives are calling each other heretics?
- Systematic Corruption: The sale of indulgences became widespread—essentially paying money to reduce time in purgatory. It made salvation transactional. If you had the coin, you had the grace.
- The Black Death (1347–1351): This plague killed nearly half the population of Europe. Bodies piled in the streets. People looked at the piles of corpses and asked, "Why is God so angry, and why can't the church fix this?"
Into this world stepped Wycliffe. He wasn't some peasant rebel with a pitchfork; he was an Oxford professor, the smartest man in England. He introduced a radical concept called Dominion by Grace. He argued that authority depends entirely on being in a state of grace. If a Pope is in mortal sin, he has no God-given authority. This was a radical inversion that echoed the words of the Psalmist:
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner (Psalm 118:22 KJV).
Wycliffe argued that those the hierarchy rejected—the common believers—could have greater spiritual authority than the institutional church itself if they were in a state of grace. This short-circuited the middleman.
Breaking the Latin Chains
Wycliffe’s second big idea was the Sufficiency of Scripture. He argued that if the Bible is the supreme authority, it overrules the Pope, tradition, and canon law. If it’s not in the Book, you don’t have to do it. This naturally led to a revolutionary conclusion: "If the Book is the boss, I better be able to read the Book."
Translating the Bible in 1382 was an industrial undertaking. Think about the scene: vellum made from sheepskins, hand-mixed gall ink, scholars working by candlelight in drafty, cold rooms, their breath visible in the air. This was manual labor for the soul.
The first version, the Early Version (EV), was led by Nicholas of Hereford. He was a true believer but terrified of the text. He did a rigid word-for-word translation that made English sound like Yoda-speak. There is a famous moment in a manuscript known as Bodley 959. Nicholas is translating the book of Baruch. He reaches chapter 3, verse 20, and the sentence just stops mid-stream. The rest of the page is blank. Why? Because Nicholas was summoned to London to answer for heresy. He had to run for his life, leaving the Word unfinished on the page.
Eventually, John Purvey, Wycliffe’s secretary, took over. He produced the Later Version (LV) around 1388, which used a "sense-for-sense" philosophy. It actually flowed. It sounded like the language of the people. And once the floodgates were open, the church couldn't shut them.
Personal Reflections
When I look at Wycliffe’s life, I’m reminded of my own journey and the things I’ve written about in my book, OPEN YOUR EYES: MY SUPERNATURAL JOURNEY. I’ve often talked about the need to have our eyes opened to the spiritual reality around us. Wycliffe was trying to open the eyes of an entire nation.
I’ve had moments where I realized I was relying on "experts" or "tradition" instead of the direct Word of God. It’s easy to let someone else do the heavy lifting of spiritual discernment. But Jesus calls us to a personal, vibrant relationship. Wycliffe saw that the "famine of the word" was keeping people in spiritual bondage.
I think about the Lollards—those "poor priests" who followed Wycliffe. They didn't have fancy cathedrals. They wore simple russet robes, went barefoot, and walked from village to village. They would meet in secret barns, huddled together by the light of a single lantern, and read these forbidden English pages. They were so hungry for the Truth that they would trade a whole load of hay just to borrow a few pages of the Gospel for an hour.
How often do I take for granted the Bible sitting on my nightstand? How often do we scroll past a verse on our phones without letting it sink in? These people risked being burned at the stake just to hear "Blessed are the poor in spirit" in their own tongue. It makes me wonder: Have we lost the reverence for the text that Wycliffe sacrificed his reputation and life to give us?
Biblical References
Wycliffe's entire life was a testament to the belief that the Word of God cannot be bound. The religious authorities of his day tried to lock the Bible in a "dead" language, but they forgot that the Word is living and powerful. Wycliffe knew that for the common man to truly follow Christ, he had to know what Christ actually said.
The authorities were terrified because they knew that once a man reads the Bible for himself, the monopoly of the priesthood is over. Wycliffe was standing on the truth found in the New Testament, where we are told:
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).
The church wanted to do the "dividing" for the people, but Wycliffe wanted the plowman to be the "workman." He wanted the average person to be able to test the spirits and see if what they were being told matched the Master's voice. He believed in the promise that:
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever (Isaiah 40:8 KJV).
Even when they burned his bones and scattered them in the water, they couldn't touch the Word he had unleashed.
Key Takeaways
- The Word is for Everyone: Wycliffe believed that no hierarchy should stand between a believer and the Scriptures.
- Dominion is by Grace: Authority isn't just about an office or a title; it’s about a right relationship with God.
- Sacrifice for Truth: The English Bible we enjoy today was paid for with the blood and bones of those who refused to let the "famine of the word" continue.
- Language Matters: Wycliffe helped mold the English language to be a vessel for the Gospel, giving us many of the theological terms we still use today.
Conclusion and Call to Action
The attempt to erase John Wycliffe backfired poetically. As the historian Thomas Fuller famously wrote: "The Swift bore them to the Avon, the Avon to the Severn, the Severn to the narrow seas, the seas into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."
You cannot burn an idea whose time has come, especially when that idea is the Word of the Living God. Wycliffe was the Morning Star—not the sun itself, but the star that shines most brightly just before the dawn of the Reformation.
We live in a world of information abundance. We have the "source code" in our pockets. My challenge to you today is this: Don't let the abundance lead to apathy. Don't let the availability lead to a new kind of famine—one where we have the words but not the heart to hear them.
If you want to dive deeper into the supernatural reality of a life lived for Christ, check out my books like Overcoming Night Terror: Making the Demons Leave or explore more episodes here at ConradRocks.net.
Would you like to stay updated on more "rocks of revelation"? Please subscribe to the podcast or leave a comment below and let me know how the Word has changed your life!
Action Items
- Read the Word for Yourself: Commit to reading a chapter of the Bible today without relying on a commentary or a teacher's interpretation first. Let the Holy Spirit speak directly to you.
- Treasure the Access: Take a moment to thank God for the fact that you can read the Bible in your own language without fear of the stake.
- Share the Light: Find one person today to share a "rock of revelation" with—a verse or a truth that has helped you in your spiritual journey.
- Study the History: Look up the "Lollards" or Jan Hus to see how the flame Wycliffe lit continued to spread across the world.
- Examine Your "Dominion": Ask yourself if you are operating out of a "state of grace" in your daily life and relationships.
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