Required reading
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (available from Amazon or free on the internet,
here for example)
- Up to the paragraph that begins: 'Moreover I saw in my dream, that as they went on, Faithful, as he chanced to look on one side, saw a man whose name is Talkative...'
My notes and thoughts
Today is a dialogue between Christian and Faithful as they compare notes about their experiences. One of the points that I think was being made between the lines, is that individual Christians struggle with different sins. For example Faithful missed the slough of despond but struggled with Moses. We cannot think that because someone else hasn't had our experience that they are an inferior Christian and we are superior ones.
My favourite section today was Faithful's encounter with shame. This has to be one of the greatest battles that Christians face as it encourages that sin that breeds all other sin, our pride. Why do we see more women than men in church? Shame has got to them: 'he [Shame] said that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing.' Why do so many turn their back on Christianity? Shame has convinced them that Science disproves it and that they will look like idiots: 'He [Shame] objected the base and low estate and condition of those that were chiefly pilgrims; also their ignorance of the times in which they lived, and want of understanding in all natural science.'
But Faithful sorts Shame out: 'I began to consider, that that which is highly esteemed among men, is had in abomination with God. And I thought again, this Shame tells me what men are, but it tells me nothing what God or the Word of God is...For those things that he [Shame] disdained, in those did I see most glory: and so at last I got past this importunate one.' If only we were as successful as Faithful in defeating Shame!
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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