Daily Verse
Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Sharing Our Faith
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Wednesday's Reflection
1 Corinthians 3:6 — I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
Thomas Bilney was a small, timid man — so unremarkable in stature that people called him "Little Bilney." He was a quiet scholar at Cambridge in the early 1500s, gentle by nature and easily frightened, not the sort of person anyone would have expected to change history. But one day, reading a New Testament, he came across a single sentence — that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — and it broke over him like a sunrise. For the first time he understood that he was forgiven, and the discovery changed everything about him. What is remarkable is what this shy, unimposing man did with it.
At Cambridge there was a brilliant young priest named Hugh Latimer who was fiercely opposed to the gospel Bilney had come to love, and who preached against it with great force. Little Bilney did not challenge Latimer to a debate — he would almost certainly have lost. Instead he did something quietly humble: he went to Latimer and asked whether he might confess his sins to him privately. Latimer agreed. And as Bilney poured out the story of how he had finally found peace with God through simple faith in Christ, the confession itself became a witness. The gospel took hold of Latimer's heart. The man who had been its fiercest opponent became one of its greatest champions.
Hugh Latimer went on to become one of the most powerful preachers of the Reformation in England — and eventually one of its most famous martyrs. When he was burned at the stake in 1555 for his faith, he turned to the man dying beside him and spoke words that have echoed ever since: that by God's grace they would that day light such a candle in England as would never be put out. That candle was lit, in part, because a timid little scholar once asked a hostile man if he could tell him about Jesus. Bilney himself never became famous, and he too was put to death for his faith. He simply planted a single seed in one hard heart, and God gave an increase that reached across a nation and down the centuries. We never know what God will do with our smallest, humblest act of witness — so we are not called to be impressive, only faithful.
Prayer: Lord, free us from the fear that our witness has to be bold or impressive. Like little Bilney, help us to share simply and humbly what You have done for us, and to trust You for the increase. We plant the seed; You give the harvest. Amen.