A man sits in a jail cell with nothing but a Bible and a pen. He has been locked up for the crime of preaching without a license. His blind daughter waits at home. He could walk free tomorrow if he promises to stop preaching.
He refuses. And instead of a sermon, he writes a story.
That story has been read by more people than any book in the English language except the Bible itself. If you have not read it, you are missing the single most important piece of Christian literature written in the last five hundred years.
What It’s About
The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory. A man named Christian discovers that the city where he lives — the City of Destruction — is about to be consumed by fire from heaven. He flees with a heavy burden on his back (his sin), and the entire book follows his journey to the Celestial City.
Along the way, he falls into the Slough of Despond. He is deceived by Mr. Worldly Wiseman. He loses his burden at the cross. He fights the demon Apollyon in hand-to-hand combat. He is imprisoned in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair. He walks through Vanity Fair, where his companion Faithful is beaten to death by the crowd.
Every character is a person you know. Every location is a place you have been. Bunyan wrote this in Bedford jail in 1675, drawing from twenty years of pastoral ministry to audiences of “unlearned but very critical hearers.” The characters who befriend or betray Christian are real people from Bunyan’s own congregation — and from yours.
Why This Book Still Matters
Bunyan was not a scholar. He was the son of a brazier — a metalworker — from a village outside Bedford. He served as a soldier in the English Civil War at sixteen. He learned to read from popular books and the King James Bible. He was, by every measure of his time, a nobody.
And that is exactly why this book has outlasted nearly everything written by the educated men of his era. Bunyan did not write for scholars. He wrote for people carrying burdens they could not name, fleeing a destruction they could feel but not explain, looking for a city they had never seen.
“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” — John 17:16
The allegory works because Bunyan understood something most theologians miss: doctrine is not abstract. It is lived. The Slough of Despond is not a metaphor for doubt — it is doubt, given a name and a geography. Giant Despair is not a symbol of depression — he is the thing itself, with a castle and a dungeon and a key called Promise that can unlock any door he builds.
What It Gets Right
The burden at the cross. Christian carries the weight of his sin for the entire first section of the book. He tries everything to remove it. Nothing works. Then he comes to a hill with a cross, and the burden falls off his back and rolls into an open sepulchre. Bunyan does not explain the atonement here. He shows it. Three hundred years of systematic theology has not produced a clearer picture of what justification feels like from the inside.
The character of Faithful. Christian’s companion Faithful is arrested at Vanity Fair, put on trial before Lord Hate-Good with a jury that includes Mr. No-Good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-Lust, and Mr. Cruelty. Faithful is convicted and burned at the stake. Bunyan wrote this knowing he might face the same fate. The scene is not sentimental — it is a manual for how to die well. And in the Reformed tradition, where we confess that God is sovereign over all things, including the death of His saints, Faithful’s martyrdom is not a tragedy. It is a coronation.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Christian walks through total darkness, demons whispering blasphemies in his ear, and he cannot tell whether the blasphemous thoughts are his own or the enemy’s. Every Christian who has experienced spiritual warfare — where you are not sure if the accusation in your head is conviction from the Holy Spirit or condemnation from the devil — will read this passage and feel seen for the first time.
Where It Falls Short
The 17th-century English. There is no way around it. Bunyan wrote in the plainest English of his day, but his day was 1678. Modern readers will stumble over syntax, vocabulary, and sentence structures that require adjustment. The Desiring God edition helps by modernizing spelling and punctuation while preserving Bunyan’s voice. But it still requires patience.
Part Two (Christiana’s journey) is noticeably weaker than Part One. As the Harrison introduction in our library edition notes, “Christiana’s journey is more placid… the party is seldom in any great danger, and their success is sure from the first.” The tension that makes Part One gripping — the real possibility that Christian might not make it — is largely absent. Read Part Two, but know that Part One is where the power lives.
Who Should Read This
| Reader | Should Read? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New believer (0-2 years) | Yes — start here | The clearest picture of the Christian life ever written in fiction |
| Seasoned believer feeling dry | Yes | It will remind you what you are walking toward and why it costs what it costs |
| Pastor preparing a sermon series | Absolutely | Endless sermon illustrations; Spurgeon preached from it constantly |
| Someone in a season of doubt | Yes, carefully | Giant Despair and the key called Promise were written for you |
| Parent looking for family reading | Yes | Read it aloud to your kids — this is how generations of Christians were raised |
| Academic theologian | As devotional | You will not find new theology here; you will find old theology made flesh |
The Data Card
BOOK DATA
- Title: The Pilgrim’s Progress (Parts I and II)
- Author: John Bunyan (1628-1688)
- Original Publication: 1678 (Part I), 1684 (Part II)
- Recommended Edition: Desiring God, 2014 — with introduction by John Piper, foreword by Leland Ryken, preface by John Newton (1776)
- Pages: 336 (Desiring God edition)
- Formats: Paperback (~$13), Kindle (~$10), Free PDF from Desiring God
READING DATA
- Difficulty: 1/5 — Accessible (no theological training needed)
- Est. Reading Time: 8-12 hours
- Suggested Pace: One section per sitting, 2-3 weeks
- Prerequisites: None. A Bible nearby helps for the many Scripture allusions.
- Re-read Value: High — reveals more every time. Spurgeon read it over 100 times.
THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
- Tradition: Puritan / Reformed Baptist (Particular Baptist)
- Key Topics: Justification by faith, perseverance of the saints, spiritual warfare, the cost of discipleship, the sovereignty of God over suffering
- Theological Stance: Calvinistic soteriology throughout. Bunyan’s A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1672) provides the doctrinal backbone.
COMPARABLE TITLES
- Instead of: C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce (shorter, less comprehensive, more philosophical)
- After this: Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (his spiritual autobiography — the real story behind the allegory)
- Pairs with: J.I. Packer’s Knowing God (the systematic theology that complements Bunyan’s experiential theology)
The Bottom Line
There is a reason this book has been continuously in print for 348 years. There is a reason Spurgeon read it more than a hundred times. There is a reason missionaries translated it before almost any other book besides Scripture.
The Pilgrim’s Progress is not a great Christian book. It is a great book — full stop — that happens to be about the most important subject in the universe: what it means to follow Christ through a world that wants to kill you, to a city you cannot yet see, carrying a burden only the cross can remove.
Read it. Then read it again. Then give it to someone who is carrying a burden they cannot name.
Rating: 5/5
As an Amazon Associate, Savage Mercies earns from qualifying purchases.
