Nehemiah 8:1-8
Is the Bible understandable and its meaning plain and clear? Or is it obscure, requiring mother church and a priestly caste to safely unravel its mysteries?
This was the line in the sand drawn by men like John Wycliffe,William Tyndale, Martin Luther, and Miles Coverdale. They went to great lengths, some even to prison and death, to translate the Scriptures into the common vernacular. The Protestant Reformation which followed, radically reshaped the Christian world and history, was grounded in an amazingly simple truth:
That common people could and should read, understand, and heed God’s Word. That God communicates to His people in understandable, readable human language. The Reformers believed that the Bible proclaimed itself to be inherently clear and that God is able to communicate His message to all men, even the unlettered. A main tenet of the Reformation is that Scripture is clear enough for the simplest person to live by. Out of this ideal we get the term, Sola Scriptura.