I've recommended quite a few books in this blog and I stand by every one of those recommendations but all books in my life, other than God's Word of course, come behind one particular book written in the 17th century. For most of these many years since it was first published it has been the biggest selling book of all time, and it's never been out of print! It's a Christian book but also a masterpiece of classic of literature.....while being written by a tinker...a tinker being a man who went from house to house repairing pots, pans and other utensils.
William Makepeace Thackeray named his Vanity Fair: A Novel Without A Hero after Bunyan's allagory. Mark Twain, e. e. cummings, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte and John Steinbeck all referrenced it in their writings while C. S. Lewis modeled one of his own books after it. The great 19th century London preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, is said to have read the book 100 times and I believe that for I am probably pushing a dozen readings myself.
The book is John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, a recounting and a foretelling of the Christian life over its entire course. It is written as allegory from a dream of the main character...Christian. The book begins with Christian's conversion along with the appearance of a great burden on his back as he is aware of his sin. He is rejected by nearly everyone and stumbles around until he is guided to the foot of the cross where his sin falls off of his back and rolls into a open grave. It's here that his journey truly begins.
I have been a professing Christian for thirty years and every person that I have ever encountered is somewhere in these pages penned by the Tinker of Bedford. I often can see myself in those who Bunyan does not present in a good light and I can only hope that I bear some traits of those who came into fellowship with our Christian. He continues to stumble at times while at other times is a soldier of the first rank...serving the King of all kings as he faces the author of all evil while living this life in a tent of mere flesh. He is given the help, the weapons, the fellowship and the determination in his battles.
Every conversation that he has will ring in the ears of the Christian today. Every failure will bring introspection, every victory will humble. Every scene is familiar, every path has been tread at one time or another... this anyway to the Christian who has enough years, for that is the only limitation.
The non-believer, reading this only as great literature, cannot help but understand the intent of the author even if he cannot empathize. The Christian reading it will recognize danger after danger, decision after decision and encounter after encounter. The book will be a source of strength to the Christian reader if for no other reason than to see how short life really is, that it is truly just a vapor even though we often live it where every minute is magnified as the only real moment in the world's history, and every breath as if the world turns on it; but when seen in Bunyan's allegory the flower wilts before our very eyes and the vanities seem so very worthless compared to what awaits us at journey's end!
The Pilgrim's Progress is presented in two parts and you will not likely pause in between. Christian has died, he had come to the river and crossed but Bunyan's words do not end here for Christian's wife, Christiana, then follows in the same pilgrimage that she made so much more difficult for her husband.
Do not most Americans live life as if God were really as the Wizard of Oz, a fake if he at all exists, albeit a good-hearted old man if discovered in his deceit and allowed to exist as such. L. Frank Baum's book, The Wizard of Oz, lives on today as we go out of our way to make sure that our children see the movie while Pilgrim's Progress gathers dust on the shelves. If you might permit me to be straightforward, do you read books such as The Shack and Heaven Is For Real, books that are at best no help whatsoever,... and ignore the gold bullion of Bunyan's book crammed somewhere in the classics section of Barnes & Noble if not your own bookshelf? Will you read a popular novel over a period of weeks yet fail to seek the precious metals used as ink in Bunyan's book? Will you sit in the stands and cheer for a professional sports team while your life passes by. If so you are in Bunyan's Vanity Fair.
Read this book before it is too late, for this culture and the technology that drives it has even greater plans to keep you away from books of which many can lead you to where you have never been and give you a view of the Celestial City that Christian entered. I haven't used this post to describe the characters that Christian meets nor the places he visits for I want you to read them from the master who gave them to us. Break out of the prison that modernity has given us and that postmodernity has labelled as a paradise.
William Makepeace Thackeray named his Vanity Fair: A Novel Without A Hero after Bunyan's allagory. Mark Twain, e. e. cummings, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte and John Steinbeck all referrenced it in their writings while C. S. Lewis modeled one of his own books after it. The great 19th century London preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, is said to have read the book 100 times and I believe that for I am probably pushing a dozen readings myself.
The book is John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, a recounting and a foretelling of the Christian life over its entire course. It is written as allegory from a dream of the main character...Christian. The book begins with Christian's conversion along with the appearance of a great burden on his back as he is aware of his sin. He is rejected by nearly everyone and stumbles around until he is guided to the foot of the cross where his sin falls off of his back and rolls into a open grave. It's here that his journey truly begins.
I have been a professing Christian for thirty years and every person that I have ever encountered is somewhere in these pages penned by the Tinker of Bedford. I often can see myself in those who Bunyan does not present in a good light and I can only hope that I bear some traits of those who came into fellowship with our Christian. He continues to stumble at times while at other times is a soldier of the first rank...serving the King of all kings as he faces the author of all evil while living this life in a tent of mere flesh. He is given the help, the weapons, the fellowship and the determination in his battles.
Every conversation that he has will ring in the ears of the Christian today. Every failure will bring introspection, every victory will humble. Every scene is familiar, every path has been tread at one time or another... this anyway to the Christian who has enough years, for that is the only limitation.
The non-believer, reading this only as great literature, cannot help but understand the intent of the author even if he cannot empathize. The Christian reading it will recognize danger after danger, decision after decision and encounter after encounter. The book will be a source of strength to the Christian reader if for no other reason than to see how short life really is, that it is truly just a vapor even though we often live it where every minute is magnified as the only real moment in the world's history, and every breath as if the world turns on it; but when seen in Bunyan's allegory the flower wilts before our very eyes and the vanities seem so very worthless compared to what awaits us at journey's end!
The Pilgrim's Progress is presented in two parts and you will not likely pause in between. Christian has died, he had come to the river and crossed but Bunyan's words do not end here for Christian's wife, Christiana, then follows in the same pilgrimage that she made so much more difficult for her husband.
Do not most Americans live life as if God were really as the Wizard of Oz, a fake if he at all exists, albeit a good-hearted old man if discovered in his deceit and allowed to exist as such. L. Frank Baum's book, The Wizard of Oz, lives on today as we go out of our way to make sure that our children see the movie while Pilgrim's Progress gathers dust on the shelves. If you might permit me to be straightforward, do you read books such as The Shack and Heaven Is For Real, books that are at best no help whatsoever,... and ignore the gold bullion of Bunyan's book crammed somewhere in the classics section of Barnes & Noble if not your own bookshelf? Will you read a popular novel over a period of weeks yet fail to seek the precious metals used as ink in Bunyan's book? Will you sit in the stands and cheer for a professional sports team while your life passes by. If so you are in Bunyan's Vanity Fair.
Read this book before it is too late, for this culture and the technology that drives it has even greater plans to keep you away from books of which many can lead you to where you have never been and give you a view of the Celestial City that Christian entered. I haven't used this post to describe the characters that Christian meets nor the places he visits for I want you to read them from the master who gave them to us. Break out of the prison that modernity has given us and that postmodernity has labelled as a paradise.
