Pilgrim's Progress: Chapter Ten

Pastor's Note: Since it's in the public domain, Pilgrim's Progress is available for free from Project Gutenberg or can be purchased on Amazon Kindle (free for Prime members, $2.99 for everyone else).

I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book and read chapter ten before reading the rest of this. The goal here is not to explain the chapter in its entirety; it’s making some observations from my reading and facilitate a discussion amongst ourselves that hopefully results in some learning and Christian growth. Be sure to avail yourselves of the comment section at the bottom of the page to weigh in with your own thoughts so we can talk about them.

Chapter 10...this chapter was excessively short, so I probably won’t get to ten observations.

1. “I think of God and Heaven.”
   “So do the devils and lost souls.”
   Believing God and heaven are there is not the sole prerequisite for a relationship with God and entry into Heaven.
2. “Follow your heart” is the dumbest advice you to which you could possibly listen. Your heart is deceitful, and ignorant was...well, ignorant of its deceitfulness.
3. "Well, Ignorance, wilt thou yet foolish be, To slight good counsel, ten times given thee? And if thou yet refuse it, thou shalt know, Ere long, the evil of thy doing so.” There’s something about the danger of refusing good counsel. You never know if you’ll get the chance to hear it again.
4. This was a brief chapter, wasn’t it? What about the man Temporary? He seemed to start strong, but when he encountered Mr. Save-self, he just fizzled. As the companions said to Ignorant, it’s a lot harder to leave all behind than most believe.

What about you? What did you observe?