John Bunyan – Man who wrote Pilgrim's Progress

Church History, Quotes | Our Masters Voice | October 19, 2008 at 8:06 pm

John Bunyan

John Bunyan was born in November, 1628, at Elstow, England

Best Known As: Author of The Pilgrim’s Progress

John Bunyan’s 17th-century book The Pilgrim’s Progress is classic literature’s most famous Christian allegory. Bunyan grew up in a village outside Bedford, England, the son of a tinker (or brazier — a mender of metal household utensils). Initially he followed his father’s trade, but in the late 1640s a spiritual awakening caused Bunyan to give up his “ungodly” ways and become a devoted student of biblical scripture. By the end of the 1650s he was a popular preacher and prolific writer who used plain language to spell out a theology in the tradition of Martin Luther and John Calvin.

He spent the next twelve years in jail refusing to give up his freedom to preach the good news of Jesus Christ, which the Official church prohibited with out being Licensed, In prison he preached to inmates and wrote sermons, poems, essays and books. After his release he published the first of several editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), an allegory in which a character named Christian, an everyman character, is the protagonist of the allegory, which centers itself in his journey from his hometown, the “City of Destruction” (“this world”), to the “Celestial City” (“that which is to come”: Heaven) atop Mt. Zion. Christian finds himself weighed down by a great burden (sin), which comes from his reading a book (the Bible).

Pilgrim's Progress

Bunyan’s other Famous books include

The Holy City (1665),
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)
The Holy War (1682). (This book is about the war in our soul between Holiness and Sinful nature)

Famous Quotes of John Bunyan:

“Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer”

“Pray often; for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan”

“When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.”

“He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find him the rest of the day”

“You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed”

“He that is down need fear no fall”

“You have chosen the roughest road, but it leads straight to the hilltops.”

“One leak will sink a ship: and one sin will destroy a sinner.”

“There was a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair.”

“Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them”

“If you have sinned, do not lie down without repentance; for the want of repentance after one has sinned makes the heart yet harder and harder”

“Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love”

“No child of God sins to that degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness”

“I love to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there have I coveted to put mine also.”

“They are for religion when in rags and contempt, but I am for him when he walks in his golden slippers in the sunshine and with applause.”

“Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.”

Our Favorite:

“When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.”

What can we Learn Today:

God can use any one, He used this Tinker to write a book which still encourages millions to take this Journey to Heaven who were saved by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

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