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Fearless pilgrimThe life and times of John Bunyan‘Hobgoblins nor foul fiends!’FEARLESS PILGRIM Most of us have heard of The Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the bestselling books of all time, but what about Fearless Pilgrim? This is a book that intertwines 17th-century English history with the drama of John Bunyan’s life. Faith Cook brings to life the atmosphere in England during this period, reporting on the turbulent times that brought suffering to many. Fearless Pilgrim is also illustrated, further enabling the reader to make the journey into Bunyan’s world. Reading of Bunyan’s humble origins and conversion were particularly absorbing. He was plagued by temptation and doubt, tormenting himself with self-accusation. It was not until he came to understand the doctrine of justification by faith that Bunyan was truly set free. For he had understood that ‘it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame of heart that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself’. And so Bunyan was no longer tormented by what he was lacking, for he knew that ‘now Christ was all... all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption’. I was also encouraged to read that through his darkest hours the Lord comforted Bunyan. During his imprisonment for preaching the gospel he confessed that being parted from his wife and children felt like pulling the flesh from his bones. Bunyan recalls that ‘Jesus Christ was never more real and apparent than now; here I have seen him and felt him indeed’. So overwhelming was his comfort from the Lord that Bunyan was tempted to pray for greater trouble for the sake of greater comfort. The story being told in Fearless Pilgrim is relevant to any Christian to persevere, come what may. Bunyan was a man who understood what it meant to live for Christ and pass a sentence of death on all that he held dear and instead ‘to live upon the invisible God’. Nancy Lambrechts, © Evangelicals Now - February 2009 |