Packer Asks, "Have You Yourself, I Wonder, Read It Yet?"

J. I. Packer offers many of us a gentle rebuke:

For two centuries Pilgrim’s Progress was the best-read book, after the Bible, in all Christendom, but sadly it is not so today. 

When I ask my classes of young and youngish evangelicals, as I often do, who has read Pilgrim’s Progress, not a quarter of the hands go up. 

Yet our rapport with fantasy writing, plus our lack of grip on the searching, humbling, edifying truths about spiritual life that the Puritans understood so well, surely mean that the time is ripe for us to dust off Pilgrim’s Progress and start reading it again. 

Certainly, it would be great gain for modern Christians if Bunyan’s masterpiece came back into its own in our day. 

Have you yourself, I wonder, read it yet?

Personally, I like the updated version of Pilgrim's Progress from Crossway, edited by C.J. Lovik.

HT: JT

The Depths of Our Depravity

From a conversation between Christian and Hopeful in The Pilgrim's Progress (where Hopeful explains how he began to be convicted of his sin):

Hopeful: "I have committed enough sin in one of my most recent good duties to send me to Hell."

Good Thoughts in Relation to Ourselves

From a conversation between Christian and Ignorance in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress:

"What do you think are good thoughts in relation to ourselves?" Ignorance inquired.

Christian answered, "Such as agree with the Word of God."

"What kind of thoughts about ourselves agree with the Word of God?" Ignorance asked further.

Christian explained, "We think rightly of ourselves when we pass the same judgment upon ourselves that the Word passes. To explain myself more fully, the Word of God says of persons in a natural condition, 'There is none righteous, there is none that doeth good.' It also says that 'every imagination of the heart of man is only evil, and that continually.' And again, 'The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.' Now then, when we think these thoughts of ourselves, our thoughts are good ones because they agree with the Word of God."

Ignorance insisted, "I will never believe that my heart is that bad."

"Therefore you have never had one good thought concerning yourself in your entire life," Christian exclaimed.

The Depths of Our Depravity

From a conversation between Christian and Hopeful in The Pilgrim's Progress (where Hopeful explains how he began to be convicted of his sin):

Hopeful: "I have committed enough sin in one of my most recent good duties to send me to Hell."