The Story of the Prisoner Who Wrote ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’

God Connects the Creative Dots

In 1677, John Bunyan sat in a tiny jail cell in the town of Bedford, England. He’d been in jail before—for twelve years. His crime? Preaching the gospel when religious authorities said it wasn’t allowed. (He wasn’t an officially trained and authorized pastor, only a tinker—like a blacksmith for small, household items.)

And now, for the same reason, he was back behind bars. When he had been in jail before, he was sometimes allowed to go home. But now the situation was different—more intense and serious. The next time he left his cell, he might not walk to his home but to the gallows.

And so he made a fateful decision. He had debated for years about whether to publish a “scribble” that he’d been writing. It was very different from anything he’d written before. It wasn’t a sermon; it was a story. It wasn’t a true story from history; it was an allegory, where fictional characters, places, and events represent real things.

In bursts of creativity, John had been writing bits of this allegorical book for about ten years. But he was hesitant to finish and publish. The authorities might read his story and think he was secretly saying something hostile against them! What if he—or his family—ended up in worse trouble? Or what if ordinary readers didn’t understand the right way to read allegory?

Yet after consulting with friends, John knew it was time. He would go public with his “scribble,” eventually titled The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Over the next ten years, this 200-page book would be reprinted eleven times! And then reprinted countless times over the next four centuries. It has not only been popular but also admired. This untrained preacher has aptly been called “the Shakespeare of theology.” And his “scribble” turned out to be a masterpiece and a blessing, for during his lifetime and long after his death, John’s ministry of preaching and writing has touched countless lives.

What made John Bunyan’s life, preaching, and writing so powerful?

God, the Creator, had given John a mind that was extremely creative. As Creator, only God can make something out of nothing; humans only create from something. Human creativity sees things God has made and aims to connect them in new and different ways. We always create by taking what exists and doing something new with it. We connect the dots, but God created the dots. And God created John Bunyan to make these kinds of connections!

Even in non-theological areas, John Bunyan was incredibly creative—taking things and transforming them. With his hands, as a tinker, he could take metal and repair kitchen pans, keys, or tools. With those skills, he once used the same materials to fashion a metal violin. And when he found himself locked in prison, Bunyan could craft a chair leg into a flute that he could play. When the guards came around, he would slip it back into its hiding place beneath his seat. He was a creative maker, writer, and musician.

Internally, even before he was a Christian, John had a vivid—if not wild—imagination. Even from the days of his youth, John possessed a mind skilled at creative expression. By his own admission, he excelled at cursing and sinning. And due to his sinful ways, he was also tormented in his mind’s eye by nightmares of God’s judgment. Even in his waking hours, John could easily connect the dots and visualize what terrifying judgment he knew awaited him.

We connect the dots, but God created the dots. And God created John Bunyan to make these kinds of connections!

Then, after believing the gospel and becoming a Christian, his creative mind was still quick to imagine dreadful possibilities. What if I’m not a real Christian? What if I’ve sinned too badly? What if I’ve committed the unforgivable sin? He had an incredibly active, if not flawed, mind.

Yet slowly, God began to change John and to transform his creative mind. By faith, John grew to see how God’s love and grace were truly connected to his life, forgiving him and assuring him. And over time, God’s Word also came alive to John! For he began to see the right kind of connections between what he had read in the Bible and what he had seen in real life. The connections between the world and Word were everywhere!

And in time, God also began to use John Bunyan’s imagination to help other people connect with the truths of Scripture. During John’s life, he preached thousands of sermons and wrote almost sixty books that helped others see those real-life connections to God and his Word.

Bunyan filled his sermons and books with creative comparisons. He crafted analogies, comparing truth to pounding ocean waves, cold weather, grave clothes, fugitives, and a whole zoo of animals: lions, dogs, bears, leopards, bulls, sheep, flies, and bees. John grasped the connections between these portions of God’s world and showed how they connected to God’s Word.

But John’s imagination is on fullest display in his two most well-known allegorical adventure stories: The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Holy War. As allegories, they’re both extended analogies of the Christian life. The first views the Christian life as a journey, as one travels from conversion to glory. The second views the Christian life as a battle, as one fights against sin, Satan, and the world.

What was John’s intention in speaking and writing so creatively? He wasn’t trying to impress others. He wasn’t trying to build a platform and gather followers to himself. He wasn’t trying to artistically express his true inner self. In the “Author’s Apology,” which explains and defends why he had written The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan described his intention in using poetic or allegorical words this way:

My dark and cloudy words they do but hold
The truth, as cabinets enclose the gold.

For Bunyan, creative words were simply ways to present the wealth of God’s Word to others. He aimed to use the fading glory of this created world—including stories, imagery, and the wonder of words—to point to greater glories above.

And from the confines of his tiny jail cell, Bunyan’s words would spread around the world. Ironically, though John had written this story while a prisoner, it soon became evident that the Word of God could not be bound in chains (2 Tim. 2:8–9). Even during John’s lifetime, the reach of The Pilgrim’s Progress spread as far as France, the Netherlands, and North America. Within 200 years, it was claimed that every household in England contained at least two books: the Bible and The Pilgrim’s Progress. And today, The Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated into over 200 languages, making it the best-selling book in the English language, other than the Bible.

God used Bunyan for his glory—the tinker from Bedford, the preacher with a jail record, the writer cut off from his freedom and family, the man with an overactive imagination. And this is the only kind of Christian that God uses. We are all flawed instruments, created by him to use the wonders of this world to display the greater splendors of his glorious name.

Champ Thornton is the author of The Story of John Bunyan: The Prisoner Who Wrote Pilgrim’s Progress.

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