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Merely an older child
Worse and worse
Pilgrim’s Progress, Page 2:
At this his Relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So, when the morning was come, they would know how he did; He told them, “Worse and worse”: he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriages to him; sometimes they would deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him: Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber, to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields, sometimes reading, and sometimes praying: and thus for some days he spent his time.
The message of the first part of the true gospel – the reality of enormous sin and the certainty of destruction before God’s anger – was just as strange in 1680 as it is in 2008. We see this in the reaction to it by the man’s family.
We have a tendency to think that hellfire-and-brimstone preaching was pretty well the only act in town in those days. In fact, then (as now) the truth about sinful man was not common, and was rarely taken seriously where it was heard. This aspect of the man’s experience, which Bunyan very much intended to be a portrait of the typical, true conversion – shows that it was not common, but rare, even in a “Christian” culture, for someone to be so concerned about their soul that it should nearly incapacitate them with grief and despair.
The effect of this first part of the gospel on his newly awakened soul is worth looking at more closely. This burden finds its counterparts in Scripture, in the Psalms where sin and vanity are contemplated:
I am feeble and sore broken; I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart…my heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.1
This effect is also seen in the lives of great Christians who lived before salvation became as “convenient” as it is today. A reading of just the first fifteen or so pages of David Brainerd’s journals (for example) is enough to show just how perfect a trap his soul was in, and how it distressed him.2 I would venture to say that David Brainerd had more spiritual understanding before his conversion than nearly every preacher of “the gospel” that I’ve heard in America in this young century.
1 Psalms 38 and 39.
2 The Life of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards; you can read the relevant excerpt in this PDF file.
Northern Savings Line
I wrote an article awhile back about Prosper.com, explaining how scrutiny is required before Prosper loans can be fairly compared with other investments. That article is still worth reading, and I still think that, after taxes and defaulted loans, a Prosper portfolio is probably not that much better than a savings account and involves significantly more risk.
Recently, though, I found another use for the site.
I wanted to help my brother Steve get some financial know-how, and to encourage him to save money. But real banks are so much hassle for kids to deal with. So I set myself up as a bank for him. He opened an account and deposits money in my cardboard box, if you will. I pay him a generous interest rate (currently at 4.45%) and give him a statement every month showing his deposits and withdrawals and how much interest he’s earned.
So like a real bank, I’m paying him for letting me hold his money; only I’m paying him far more than a real bank would1. But here’s the deal: like a real bank, I don’t keep all of that money in my cardboard box. I made clear to him that if he ever needs to withdraw more than half his money, he has to wait three business days before he gets the cash. So I take the money he deposits and invest it, and try to earn more on it than I’m paying out.
In order to make more than the 4.45% I’m paying Steve, I’ve lent the money to a couple of people with low-grade credit ratings through Prosper.com, where I aim to get an 8.6% annual return on that money. It’s like I’ve created my own little subprime credit crisis in a teapot, and it’s kind of cool.
I’ve taken on more risk in hopes of earning more, but the upfront cash cost to me is nil since I’m using Steve’s money. The risk to Steve is nil since I’ve agreed to repay him his money plus interest no matter what happens2.
1 The interest paid on savings account for a minor is almost less than negligible; and even grown-ups are lucky to get 4% on a savings account (as of this writing).
2 Let’s just say my credit rating within the family is pretty golden.
Crazy and Burdened.
Pilgrim’s Progress, page 1 – read carefully:
In this plight therefore he went home, and refrained himself as long as he could, that his Wife and Childen should not perceive his distress, but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased: Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his Wife and Children; and thus he began to talk to them: “O my dear Wife,” said he, “and you children of my bowels, I your dear Friend, am in myself undone by reason of a Burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover, I am for certain informed that this our City will be burned with fire from Heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee my Wife, and you my sweet Babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except (the which yet I see not) some way of escape may be found, whereby we may be delivered.”
Where to start. As I alluded to in the last post, one of the reasons I find this book so interesting is the huge difference between its gospel & its experience of the gospel – and what we hear in church today. Even if you are religious, try to read this with a fresh eye, and ask yourself whether it rings true with your experience – or whether, if someone you know began to behave like this, you would respond with as little understanding as this man’s family did.
We read that the man “refrained himself as long as he could,” which is immediately understood by anyone who has been in his position. It is bad enough to be confronted with great danger to yourself, but even worse to see that those nearest to you, who will also be destroyed, cannot see the danger and will probably only think you crazy. When you read it, you are likely to share his family’s opinion of him.
Well, let us hear the man try to explain himself. He gave two reasons for his trouble. The first was the burden on his back. This burden represents his sins, which were too numerous to count. Even the good things he had done were so infused by sinful motives as to render them worse than worthless. The burden was so great that the weight of the whole mess of all his actions was too great for him to bear.
The burden was strapped on so tightly that (as will be seen) neither he nor anyone else was able to get it off. This shows that his sins were inextricably linked with his very personality. One way of putting it: a person who is a murderer or a pedophile becomes linked with their sin in our minds, so we can hardly think of one without the other; but of the two, we are less horrified by the sin than by the kind of person who could do such a thing and be casual about it afterwards. The problem was not just that the man had sinned, it was that he was a sinner – it was his nature to sin. This man’s burden would not have been so bad if he could get rid of it somehow (by going to church, for example) but he found it so tightly connected to his body that there was no separating the two.
It is worth noting that he had to tell his family of his burden – they couldn’t see it. This shows how the awareness of sinfulness is intensely personal, and not only invisible to others, but strange. No other character in the whole book is directly described as having borne such a burden, though it is plainly inferred in certain specific passages.