The Obedience of a Christian Man (Penguin Classics)

The Obedience of a Christian Man by William Tyndale, a principal translator of the King James Bible, was published in 1528, three years after the first publication of his English translation of the New Testament. Obedience defends the basic goal of his translation, and of the English Reformation that he helped incite: opening direct access for all believers, even the "boy that driveth the plough" to Scripture, the supreme authority of the Church. For reformers such as Tyndale, obedience to Scripture was a revolutionary act requiring complete commitment. Tyndale described this commitment with forcefulness that still reads fresh today:

To preach God's word is too much for half a man. And to minister a temporal kingdom is too much for half a man also. Either other requireth an whole man. One therefore cannot well do both.

The book is a landmark of political thought, expounding another fundamental principle of the English Reformation: that the king is the supreme authority of the state. (Tyndale's ideal of royal authority, however, is determined by Scripture's authority: "The most despised person in his realm is the king's brother and fellow member with him and equal with him in the kingdom of God and Christ.") The Obedience of Christian Man includes much rhetoric about obedience of woman to man that now appears archaic and offensive, but its tough-minded description of the uneasy relationship between power and love is timeless. --Michael Joseph Gross