Jesus cautioned that those who follow Him must carefully count the cost of discipleship. Today, Derek Thomas considers a sobering description in The Pilgrim’s Progress of those who fail to count the cost. Get Derek Thomas’ teaching series The Pilgrim’s Progress: A Guided Tour on DVD, plus lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3883/donate Meet Today’s Teacher: Derek Thomas is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary. He is featured teacher for the Ligonier teaching series The Life of Peter and author of many books, including Heaven on Earth, Strength for the Weary, and Let Us Worship God. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
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In John Bunyan's day, people were afraid of sin and of falling away from the faith.
This is a very sobering truth and one, I think, that makes Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress perhaps shocking and somewhat alarming to modern readers, particularly modern readers who have been influenced by an easy believism.
As we read the pilgrim's progress, we can't help but be reminded of our own fallenness and the issues and struggles in our own lives. And important questions are raised, like how can we overcome pitfalls and obstacles in our life? And what, if anything, must we do in this life to make it to the next? This is the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. It's great to have you with us.
Generations of Christians have been helped by reading The Pilgrim's Progress, both by being provoked to think through questions like that, but also by gaining biblical answers and comfort. So be sure to request the entire 19-part study when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org before this offer ends tomorrow.
Well, here's Derek Thomas as we continue his behind-the-scenes guided tour of the Pilgrim's Progress.
Well, welcome back to Lecture 3 in our study together of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We're at a very, very interesting stage in Pilgrim's Progress. Christian has just made it through the Wicket Gate. He's been pulled through by a man by the name of Goodwill.
And you might, had you not known the story, you might have expected at this point for the burden to roll away and from this point onwards there would be little by way of difficulty. But actually that's not the case. And what happens now is alarming. For some it is distressing. For others it is confusing. Because Mr. Goodwill tells him now to go to the house of Mr. Interpreter.
And here in this house, he will see many things, one of which will be deeply, deeply disturbing. Alexander White says in his commentary on Pilgrim's Progress and on the characters of Pilgrim's Progress, he says, "'Every minister of the gospel is an interpreter, and every evangelical church is an interpreter's house.'"
So bear that in mind as commentators try to understand what Bunyan is actually doing at this point. He's saying that the church has a responsibility to teach those who are recently converted, those who have been brought in through the wicked gate, they've got a responsibility to teach them certain things about the way of salvation, about what the Christian life actually looks like.
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