Wycliffe: speak plainly

Saturday, December 31, 2011
    Commemoration of John Wycliffe, Reformer, 1384
Meditation:
    But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
    —Luke 21:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Thus by the authority of the law of God men should speak her words as God’s law speaketh, and strange not in speech from understanding of the people, and always beware that the people understand well, and so use common speech in their own person; and if they speak in Christ’s person [the] words of his law, look that they declare him, for dread of privy errors.
    And scorn we the arguments that fools make here, that by the same power should we speak thus, for God speaks thus the words of his law. Such apes likeness passes beast’s folly, for they would bring by this that each man were God. And so have we leave to speak as him liketh, [though] we speak not aye so by the same authority; these words that God speaketh should we always grant, and declare to him true understanding.
    ... John Wycliffe (1320?-1384), Select English Works of John Wyclif, v. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869, p. 78-79 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You enable Your people to speak the Gospel clearly. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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