The Morning Star

At Whit's End, Mr. Whittaker returns Matthew Parker's Bible, which the boy has left behind after youth group yet again. Matthew shrugs it off, since his family owns at least a dozen Bibles, but Whit wonders aloud whether Matthew has ever considered why Bibles are so easy to come by, and why people are even allowed to own and read them at all. To help him imagine a time when that was not so, Whit sends Matthew, Bible in hand, on an Imagination Station adventure.

Matthew lands in the streets of London six hundred years in the past, where a priest named Father Unwin is warning a crowd about hellfire and explaining that people can lessen their suffering for sin through pilgrimages or contributions to the church, and that bigger contributions buy greater relief. When a young man named Robert questions this, Matthew cannot stay quiet: salvation is a free gift, he insists, because Jesus already paid the price. He backs it up by quoting John 3:16 from memory. Father Unwin is scandalized that a boy would dare interpret Scripture, and things get worse when Matthew pulls out his own Bible, written in English instead of Latin. Crying "Blasphemy!" the priest snatches the book to throw it in a fire pit, and in the scuffle to get it back, Matthew accidentally knocks him down.

Matthew is rescued by Sir John Oldcastle, a knight and baron who forces the priest to return the boy's property and places Matthew under his protection. Sir John explains that Matthew has committed what the church calls heresy simply by reading the Bible for himself in English, which makes him a Lollard, a follower of the late teacher John Wycliffe, who believed everyone should be able to read Scripture in their own language. Sir John marvels at Matthew's printed English Bible, unlike anything he has ever seen, and wishes he could make London a place where anyone who wants a Bible has one.

The two are summoned before a convocation of bishops led by Archbishop Arundel, where Sir John stands accused of harboring Lollard preachers and spreading their views. Sir John boldly declares that a priest's counsel may be helpful, but only repentance before God, not confession to a priest, can wipe out sin. When Matthew offers his Bible as evidence, the Archbishop grows suspicious of a translation credited to a King James, since England's king is Henry, and dismisses the book even after Matthew reads passages proving it matches the church's own Scriptures. Urged to recant and return to the fold, Sir John answers firmly, "I will not." He is condemned as a heretic to be burned at the stake, though King Henry, his old friend, has granted him forty days in the Tower of London to reconsider. Matthew is sentenced to forty days alongside him, and his Bible is confiscated as kindling for the fire.

In their cell, Sir John admits that although he has often said he is willing to die for his beliefs, actually facing death is a daunting prospect. Before long, Robert appears with help from friends inside the Tower and breaks them out. Hiding in a Lollard bookshop, Robert reveals that a Lollard rebellion is gathering at St. Giles in the Fields and wants Sir John to lead it. Sir John refuses and proposes a different plan: he will kidnap King Henry during a rowdy Twelfth Night celebration at Eltham, so he can speak with his old friend alone and reason with him. Matthew nervously joins him, admitting, "I've never kidnapped a king before."

But the plot has been betrayed. Father Unwin ambushes them at Eltham, the king long gone, and reveals that the rebellion at St. Giles has been crushed as well. Sir John fights free and escapes, but Matthew is captured. Charged now with treason as well as heresy, he is told he will grow old in the Tower, and as the priest hurls his Bible toward the flames, Matthew cries out in protest. "You can't stop people from reading God's Word!"

Matthew's cry carries him out of the adventure and back to Whit's End, where his Bible is safe, handed to him by a very real Robert, Robert Lollard, an actual descendant of Wycliffe's followers who works for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Whit has been working with Robert and the organization to create this very adventure about the importance of Bible translation. Robert explains what history records: the real John Oldcastle was eventually put to death, and Wycliffe was so hated as a heretic that forty-four years after his death his bones were dug up and burned, yet he is now remembered as the Morning Star of the Reformation. Whit and Robert add that many people around the world still cannot read the Bible, whether because of their governments or because it has never been translated into their language. Matthew, who never realized how precious his own Bible was, promises to take better care of it and asks whether he might become a Bible translator himself one day. Robert warmly welcomes the idea, because the Lollards need all the help they can get.