The story begins with John Bunyan asleep in a cave (actually his jail cell), and the story comes to him in a dream. He sees an unnamed man, dressed in rags, holding a book, with a heavy burden on his back. He is troubled after reading from the book in his hand, and exclaims "What must I do?" After going home, he tries to tell his wife and children of the upcoming destruction of their city, but they do not believe him, and send him to bed to shut him up. He cannot sleep as the destruction foretold in the book is too strong in his mind. Subject to his family's derision, he withdraws from them for prayer, often going into a nearby field to pray and read the book. Several days later, he cries out, "What must I do to be saved?" A man named Evangelist approaches and asks why he is troubled, whereupon the man recounts the destruction foretold by the book. Evangelist asks "Why are you standing here?" The man answers, "I don't know where to go!" Evangelist points to a distant gate and tells the man that is where he needs to go. The gate is not visible, however, so Evangelist tells the man to go toward the shining light, it will direct him to the gate, and he will then be told what to do.
Our man thereupon starts running toward the light, but his family and neighbors will not let him go unmolested. Two ruffians, Obstinate and Pliable, are sent out to bring him home by force. They catch up to our man Christian (and it is here that the man's name is first disclosed) and attempt to talk him into giving up his quest. Christian is not deterred however, and Obstinate decides to call off the chase and return home. Pliable however, seems sympathetic to Christian's quest and decides to go along. Obstinate goes home alone.
Thoughts on this chapter
The gate is a prominent symbol mentioned throughout the book. Christian is told that he must start the journey at the gate, but he is identified as Christian before he enters the gate. I think this is symbolic of John Bunyan's early Christian life. Having a rough character to reform, and being married to a religious woman, it was likely that he was a dedicated church member before understanding salvation by grace. Later in the book, Christian meets people who enter the path by climbing over the wall instead of entering by the gate, and ...well, I'm getting ahead. Read John 10 for Jesus' description of such people, and you can anticipate what their end is in the book.
Christian leaves his family for this quest. I'm not sure that one should leave a spouse behind, as in divorce, to become a Christian. The most important question is one's salvation of course, but I think God can use us to bring others with us. Bunyan cites Luke 14:26 where Jesus says "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." (NKJV) Given the symbolic nature of the quest, where going means becoming a Christian, and staying means not becoming one, it is obvious that Christian is doing what he must do.
When I chose to become a Christian in June 2001, Amy had not made up her mind to do so, though she has told me since that she felt God moving in her life. It was a real concern for us and we talked about it a lot. Was it going to drive us apart? What relationship would we have with our former Unitarian Universalist congregation, where Christianity was not respected? Things changed after September 11 2001, however. Our anniversary is September 17, and we were at a bed and breakfast (the one with the alpacas), and due to the extremely troubling mood at the time, we decided to go to church (it was the first Sunday after 9/11, I think 9/16). We went to a nearby Methodist church where a friend of Amy's goes, and she had an experience with God I'd have to let her explain to you, but she was moved. We've been going to church together ever since. One thing Amy told me later was that after 9/11, I seemed to be pretty much at peace with what happened (See Psalm 4:8 for what I said at bedtime every night for a very long time after that terrible day). I was upset of course for all the people who died, but I don't remember breaking down and crying until almost a month had passed. As far as the buildings go, I used to walk through those buildings every day on my way home from work, and I'm going to miss the view of all those lights going up into the sky as I looked up from the Winter Garden, but I also realized that they were just works of man.
Posted by joelfuhrmann at March 6, 2003 10:15 PM