John Wycliff –“…to be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ.”
1. He also stated: “All those who love Christ, whether priest, knight or laborer, must carefully study the gospel in that tongue in which the meaning of the gospel was clearest to them; for all the faithful were bound to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and the more closely they followed Him, the more and the better did they love Him; and; since the deeds and teaching of Christ were more clearly expressed in the gospel than elsewhere, it was obvious how much the careful study of this book profited the faithful.”
2. Wycliffe believed that the Bible in a written form that the average person could read and understand was the greatest tool for the Christian. This resource was the key in getting the people of his day to live right.
a. People can only change when they allow the word to impact their lives. For it to impact their lives they needed to know what it said about living.
3. Wycliffe raised up his troop of preachers and sent them out into the country side on the premise that right thinking leads to right living. Therefore his preachers were to teach the people the truth and put the Bible into their hands so that they could learn to renew their minds with the Word of God and this in turn would cause them to live for God. The key was encouraging the people to read and study the Bible for themselves and to hear and learn from Preachers who preached the Word.
4. John Wycliffe’s rules for Studying The Bible:
a. Obtain a reliable text
b. Understand the logic of Scripture
c. Compare the parts of Scripture with one another
d. Maintain an attitude of humble seeking
e. Receive instruction of the Spirit