John Wycliffe
James A. Watkins is an entrepreneur, musician, and a writer with four non-fiction books and hundreds of magazine articles read by millions.
JOHN WYCLIFFE
PART OF THE GOSPELS FROM THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE
"JOHN WYCLIFFE READING HIS TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE TO JOHN OF GAUNT" AS PAINTED IN 1861 BY FORD MADOX BROWN
THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE OF 1382 ON DISPLAY
JOHN WYCLIFFE PREACHING IN THE COUNTRYSIDE OF ENGLAND
ONE PAGE FROM THE JOHN WYCLIFFE BIBLE IN OLDE ENGLISH
THE BONES OF JOHN WYCLIFFE ARE DUG UP AND BURNED 40 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH (ILLUSTRATION FROM FOXES BOOK OF MARTYRS 1563)
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe (1330-1384) is the “Morning Star of the Reformation.” He railed against the wealth of the Church, rejected papal supremacy, and denied the doctrine of transubstantiation of the Eucharist. He was burned as a heretic, but only posthumously.
Wycliffe argued that any authority church leaders have must be based on their moral authority, so the decrees of an immoral pope carried no weight at all. He said that Christ was the head of the worldwide Church, not the Bishop of Rome. In the end, he concluded that the papacy was the anti-Christ.
Wycliffe challenged the idea that the Roman Catholic Church was the final authority over the life and beliefs of Christians. Rome held that only it could interpret the Bible correctly, but Wycliffe rejected this notion. He and his followers translated the Bible into English so that people could hear the truth of the Scriptures for themselves. Wycliffe said to the Church in Rome, “Condemn the Word of God in any language as heresy and you call God a heretic.”
John Wycliffe was educated in scholastic philosophy, civil law, the canon of the Church, and was acquainted with every branch of learning. Even his enemies knew him to be a wise man who was fe