Jo and I are still reading Pilgrim’s Progress. It gets much better as it goes along - the second half seems to have really moved up a notch into brain exercise. Christian, the pilgrim meets a man called Talkative (all the characters are named according to the character trait which they most represent - or, rather, character traits are represented as people in the book).

Talkative, to amplify, is ‘a saint abroad, and a devil at home’, he talks the talk, talks the walk, but doesn’t walk the walk as people would have said in the last millennium, which is the distinction James makes in the NT between saying and doing. He’s charming, agreeable, knowledgeable (in the classic sense - before experience was accepted as a form of truth as it is nowadays by many post-moderns), and worst of all he doesn’t realise any of this - he believes himself to be on a pilgrimage the same as Christian & Faithful.

But then it starts to get interesting.  They move their discussion from the top level from ’sayers and doers’ to inner fruit.  First Christian starts to talk about the end of the world being compared to a harvest and so being judged by fruit and not profession, and the insignificance of a profession of faith on judgement day.  St Paul calls these people resounding gongs and clanging symbols - lifeless things that make sounds.

Faithful asks Talkative “How does God’s saving grace reveal itself when it’s in a man’s heart?”. First Talkative suggests that its an outcry against sin. Faithful corrects him to say it shouldn’t just cause an outcry, but a hate of sin.  Talkative suggests that the second proof is ‘Great knowledge of gospel mysteries’.  Faithful slaps Talkative around a bit for suggesting that knowledge of gospel mysteries should be a proof primarily because that knowledge can be acquired without experiencing any work of grace in the soul, and that, again, knowledge pleases the talker and boaster, but ‘doing’ pleases God.

Faithful then suggests where he believes grace reveals itself. First, to the one who has a work of grace in his soul, it brings the conviction of sin…

Hang on. Like what? eh? How does that work? Here I stopped and began to think. I can see how conviction of sin can bring you to repentance and so receive a work of grace, but I can’t see the other way round as Faithful suggests here. In “what’s so amazing about grace” Yancy talks about people who are entirely transformed simply because they’ve received grace. But that’s not what Faithful is saying here - Faithful is talking about further conviction of sin because of a work of grace.

Faithful explains that the person who has received a work of grace is “especially convicted about the corruption of his nature, and his sin of unbelief, for which he’s certain to be damned, if he doesn’t find mercy at God’s hand through faith in Jesus Christ.” Faithful goes on, but this, to me, is not a route that I’ve found myself travelling upon. I was struck, convicted perhaps, that when I do see a work of grace in my life conviction of sin rarely follows, in fact, appallingly, sin often follows (a good excuse would be that it is enemy attack, but I think that’s more wishful thinking and the passing of the buck.  Passing the buck: how often do we see in the papers “gambling ruined my life”, or “debt ruined my marriage”, when its actually that the person chose debt or gambling to ruin their life & marriage - still, addictive sin cycles are just that: addictive and cycles so I had better avoid judgement and merely condemn the absurd claim).  Passing the buck is something I have an internal check on pretty well much constantly, but thats not really what we’re talking about here.

Bunyan, the author, implies that a holy work of God’s grace in your life brings to light the contrast between that holy work and the corrupt nature that remains. This describes the mechanism I was looking for earlier - a man is further convicted of sin not because he was touched by a work of grace (as Yancy suggests), but because of the result of the exposure of the contrast that remains.  Faithful continues “This sight and knowledge bring sorrow and shame. But he finds, also, that the Saviour of the world is revealed to him together with the absolute necessity of being united to him for life. And he finds that he hungers and thirsts for his Saviour and it’s for this hunger and thirst that the promise is given. According to the strength or weakness of his faith in his Saviour, so are his joy and peace, his love of holiness, his desire to know him more, and to serve him in this world.”

I feel like I’m debugging right now. I think initially I had started to wonder if God was at all at work in my life. Speaking objectively that’s plainly rediculous (rationality may have some rather nasty drawbacks but it does have perspective and proportion as a trait and so can be useful), but I do think rather a lot of God’s work in my life is snuffed out at some point before it’s allowed to bear fruit - or perhaps before, if it were a seed it takes hold and even sprouts a shoot.

God is also speaking to me about my natural leaning towards saying rather than doing, like talkative.  I wonder whether that’s why I’ve never been led down the formal training route in ministry (or even to degree level) and such because I naturally prefer to learn academically and circumvent both my heart and more importantly my spirit.  I could easily learn all there is and never actually do anything - knowledge puffs up etc.  It’s also a lot easier to just say rather than do, to acquire information rather than experience.  It’s funny that it’s the ongoing fight in my life - I’ve blogged about this same subject many moons ago but from a different place.

So anyway, God is convicting me: I need be a doer not a sayer, and to take the time to observe the contrast between God’s work in my life and the stuff that remains, to respond to the conviction that comes as a result, and as James said, stop deceiving myself, and remember what my face looks like in a mirror :@)     (James 1.23-24 NIV)

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