Read:
Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 2 Part 6

Relate: The first thing the Interpreter shows Christian is a portrait, a painting on the wall of a man with eyes lifted toward heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth written on his lips, the world behind him, and a crown of gold above his head. It is not a painting of a famous king or a great warrior. It is a painting of a faithful preacher, and the Interpreter tells Christian plainly: this is the man whose company you are to seek in all your difficulties on the road ahead. This man is the kind of person God puts in the path of pilgrims to help them find their way.

Bunyan was a preacher himself, writing from a prison cell where he had been put for the crime of preaching without a license, and there is something quietly courageous about his decision to open the Interpreter’s house with this image. He is not elevating the preacher above the pilgrim. He is saying something simpler and more important. God uses faithful human voices to carry divine truth. The pilgrim who dismisses or neglects those voices does so at their own peril. The portrait is not an argument for institutional religion. It is an argument for sitting under the Word, taught faithfully, by people whose eyes are oriented toward heaven rather than toward whatever is popular or profitable in the moment.

React: “The world is behind his back.” The world was not destroyed. It was not burned. It is just behind him. This is just one small fraction of a single sentence within this section. But it jumped out at me. The preacher in this painting has turned away from the world. He has not dramatically rejected but simply de-prioritized the world when the preacher has found something better to face. It is an incredibly hard thing to turn our back on the world. Some people find themselves constantly sucked back in through social media doom scrolling. Others who care deeply for justice and peace find themselves constantly following the latest current events. I live in Kyiv and I have multiple Iranian friends from my time living in Turkiye. This is a temptation for me. What is your temptation? What prevents you from putting this world behind you?

Respond:

Dear God,
Help me to turn my back on the things of this world that pull my attention away from You. Yes, I am called to live in this world. Yes, I am called to serve, and intercede for, and reach out to those in this world. But my attention, my focus, must always be first and foremost You. In the day to day living, help me to not forget this.
Amen