Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address in 1863 which is still referenced today, he ended with the iconic line, “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln thought his speech would be long forgotten; he was wrong. It was spoken in 2 minutes, changed the course of American History and is still referenced today. What many people don’t realize is that the iconic line was written nearly 500 years earlier by John Wycliffe.

John Wycliffe was a catholic priest and spoke out against the abuse by the church leadership. As you could imagine they were not too happy about that. At that time the Bible was not written in everyday English but in Latin which only the educated could read. Wycliffe saw the difference between how the church was acting and what the Bible said. He wanted to get the Bible into the language of ordinary people, so the common man could read it for themselves and thus power could be redistributed.

As the church considered it heresy for translating the Bible into English, John Wycliffe took great risk attempting it. When he had finished, John Wycliffe wrote in the prologue to his translation of the bible, “The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.”

John Wycliffe knew that the key to man’s liberty and equality was ultimately God’s words and he was right. So did Abraham Lincoln, who inspired the nation to fight the civil war against slavery, ultimately for man’s liberty and equality.

Thank you, God, for your words of truth which inspires ordinary people to do extraordinary things, often to their own detriment.

Question: How do you treat those that give honest feedback that’s not so good?

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

Blessings Yvette Wynne