I pray for you constantly, asking God,
the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to give you spiritual wisdom and insight
so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.
Ephesians 1:16-17

Read: John 14:15-26, Ephesians 1:15-23
Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 2 Part 5

Relate: Before Christian heads down the narrow way alone, Goodwill gives him one more piece of guidance: there is a house a short distance along the road, belonging to a man called the Interpreter, and Christian is to go there and ask to be shown the things that will be profitable for him along the journey. This is not a detour, it is preparation. The Interpreter’s house is, in the economy of Bunyan’s allegory, the place where the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the new believer to the deep things of God. Here Christian will learn hidden meanings of what he has already seen and the essential truths of what lies ahead. You cannot make the journey well without this stop. 

In a story about a journey, this need to stop here first is important. Christian has just come through the gate. He has just been welcomed, pulled across the threshold, and pointed toward the road. Everything in him must be crying out to run. He desires to just go, to finally be moving, to put as much distance as possible between himself and the City of Destruction and the hill that nearly crushed him. But Goodwill says, “Not yet. First, go to the Interpreter. First, be taught. First, sit still long enough to have the important things explained to you before you need them.” There is something here for those of us who want to charge headlong into the journey without first being equipped for it.

React: Most commentators believe Interpreter is the Holy Spirit. He is the one Jesus promised would guide His people into all truth, who would take the deep things of God and make them known to the sons and daughters of the kingdom. His method of teaching is not a lecture. It is a series of pictures and scenes. They are visual, experiential, visceral encounters with truth that lodge themselves in the memory and the heart rather than simply passing through the brain. The Holy Spirit does not teach by giving a dissertation. He teaches by encounter. He shows you something that you cannot look away from, something that rearranges the furniture of your interior life, and you walk away different from the way you arrived. Christian is about to have several of those encounters. None of them will leave him unchanged.

Respond:

Dear God,
You are the greatest teacher. You know exactly what I need to hear and how to best get it past my defenses and into my innermost being. But all too often I am distracted. All too often, I am too “busy” to take the time to stop and pause and give You the time I need to have with You. Help me to slow down, pause daily on my journey through life, and listen to what You have to teach me.
Amen