“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
I Corinthians 1:27
Most Christians will recognize the book, “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Those who have delightfully read and related to Christian’s journey will probably be familiar with its author, John Bunyan. Charles Spurgeon loved reading “Pilgrim’s Progress.” By the time Spurgeon died, he said he had read the book over 100 times and tried reading it at least once a year. He considered Bunyan’s writing the most important book in his life, besides Scripture. He said of Bunyan, “Prick him, and he’ll bleed Bible!”
John Bunyan did not come to Christ until he was a young man. He tells the account of his conversion in his wonderful book, “Grace Abounding to the Chief Sinners.” Listen as Bunyan describes the day he surrendered to Christ, “’Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed: I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God…For by Scripture, I saw that the Man Jesus Christ, as He is distinct from us as touching His bodily presence, so He is our righteousness and sanctification before God. Here therefore I lived for some time, very sweetly at peace with God through Christ…’”
He was born in Elstow, England November 28, 1628 to a poor family. He had very little education. However, after being soundly converted, he became a preacher of the Gospel. Bunyan was a Puritan. Today, Puritans get a bad reputation because they were so strict and legalistic. I wish more Christians read the Puritan authors. George Whitefield, the famous nineteenth century evangelist said that the Puritans were, “Burning and shining lights. When cast out by the black Bartholomew Act, and driven from their respective charges to preach in barns and fields, in the highways and hedges, they in a special manner wrote and preached as men having authority. Though dead, by their writings they yet speak: a peculiar unction attends them to this very hour” (Works, 4:306-307).
Puritans were separatists that called for reform and for England to return to true Biblical Christianity. The Church of England was established by King Henry VIII around 100 years before Bunyan’s birth. King Henry demanded a divorce from the Pope and when the Pope would not grant him his divorce, King Henry formed the Church of England, which is still quite popular to this day. While the Church of England was separate from the Roman Catholic Church, it still resembled Catholicism too much for the Puritans to be a part of it.
Bunyan was born at time that the religious turmoil went hand in hand with the political turmoil. England was in conflict as the Parliament fought against the monarchy. King Charles I took a Catholic princess as his bride, Henrietta Maria of France, much to the dislike of the public and the Puritans. The Westminster Confessions were written during his reign and his monarch brought England to two civil wars. Finally, he was tried and sentenced for high treason and was beheaded on Tuesday, January 30, 1649.
This history is quite important because it leads up to the reason John Bunyan suffered such affliction for his ministry. Bunyan was a Puritan through and through (now that you understand more what a Puritan was) and he suffered for it.
He was indicted for preaching the Gospel without an official license from the established Church of England in 1658. However, he continued to preach for two years before suffering imprisonment. His initial sentence in November 1660 was only for 3 months, but because he refused to stop preaching, he remained captive for 12 years, being without his wife and children.
It was through these 12 long years of imprisonment that “Pilgrim’s Progress” was written. Now that you know the tremendous sacrifice that Bunyan gave, the next time you pick up a copy of “Pilgrim’s Progress”, remember the Scripture given by Paul in 2 Timothy 2:9, “For which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the Word of God is not bound!”
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18
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