The Whole Body, Part 8: The Spine

The Church as a Whole Body: Heart, Spine, and Maturity

Well this morning we continue on now as we've been spending several weeks working through this issue of the body. What it means to be a whole body. That is how a body, a church body is composed so that every corresponding part functioning as God has gifted and enabled it works together for the up-building or the edification of the whole.

The idea of a whole body not only being a complete body but a healthy body, a mature body. And so our purpose both this morning and in the past several weeks has been to understand more fully what Paul describes in Ephesians chapter 4.

That we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

And so we began this approach to the church body by looking at various parts of the body. We had the head, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth. Last week we looked at the heart and emphasized there the need for a tender heart, a heart of compassion, of pity.

A heart that is moved and stirred by the love of God. A heart that has received the outpoured love of God in Christ by the Spirit and therefore seeks to pour out that love toward others, especially in the household of faith.

Especially toward others that love the Lord. And so we've gone from the heart now this morning to the spine, the backbone, the spine. We use the term spine, of course, to speak of courage or boldness.

We use the spine metaphorically to speak of strength or of conviction. And I want all of these synonyms to be on display this morning. Scripture doesn't exactly use the word spine in that way, but of course you have some shades of courage, backbone, manliness, vigor.

And we're using all of that to get at what it means for our body to have a healthy spine. That is maturity in courage, health in boldness, the strength of conviction, and the conviction of strength. We use that, of course, not only to speak of strength, but a lack of spine speaks to a lack of strength or a lack of conviction.

A few days ago I came across a newspaper headline, and it was online, and it said a new species of Spinosaurus has been discovered in the Sahara. And as I was reading through the comments, and they're saying this is amazing, we find this new species of spined animals in the Sahara.

And someone wrote, we also have a species of spineless creatures in the Senate. And of course the idea there is cowards, men lacking conviction, men that lack strength. So you have this idea of spine, courage, boldness.

Now last week we looked at the tender heart, and I wanted to really amplify all that that tenderness ought to be, because I knew where we would be this morning. That a tender heart should never be without a strong spine.

And at the same time, and by the same token, a strong spine should never be without a tender heart. And in either of these, a church can err. To paraphrase Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, if the whole body were a spine, where would the tender heart be?

In other words, where would the compassion and longing be? If the whole body were a spine. Or, if the whole body were a tender heart, where would the spine be? Where would the courage, where would the conviction be?

So the whole body can't be a spine, and the whole body can't be the heart. But rather, having a strong spine, we can afford to have a tender heart. Or having a tender heart, we can afford to have a strong spine.

And I think scripture itself holds these two together. I hope you'll see that even in Ephesians 6, but maybe just the most clear way that these come together is 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13. Watch. Stand fast in the faith.

A really important aspect of having a spine is you're actually able to persevere. You can stand fast. Some of you have had chronic back issues, or you know people who are debilitated because of back problems.

The one thing they can't do very well is stand. Not without grimacing, not without pain, and not for long. So the idea of having a strong spine, a strong, capable back, is that you can stand fast. And notice what that leads toward, the other synonyms here.

Stand fast in the faith. Be brave. Be strong. This is all spinal language, if we could put it that way. But what comes immediately with that? Let all that you do be done with love. So somehow, the tender heart, let everything you do be done in love, is right there next to the strong spine.

Be courageous. Be brave. Stand fast. And so the spine and the tender heart go together in a mature body. Men and women in the faith know how to have both, and how to hold both together. Clarity. Conviction.

Strength. Boldness. Endurance. Pity. Compassion. Long-suffering. Gentleness. Patience. Do you see? All these are held together in a mature body of Christ. Now we're looking at the spine, and I'd like to look at the spine in three different ways, or maybe three different effects.

Some of the issues of the spine we're actually going to get into next week when we talk about the shoulders. And so I'll let that be. I know everyone's always wondering, where are we at anatomically? Anatomically, is that the word?

Well, let's talk about the spine, or perhaps we could just say the courage, first, to stand. And then secondly, the courage to speak. And then third and last, the courage to enter. The courage to stand, the courage to speak, the courage to enter.

We will need a strong spine to do these three things. We will need to have courage. We will need to have strength. We will need to have conviction to do these three things. So Ephesians 6, beginning in verse 10, the courage to stand.

Standing Against Spiritual Warfare in Ephesians 6

Finally, my brethren, be strong. That's spinal language. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. So you have strength, power, might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles, against the schemes of the devil, because we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in this evil day, and having done all, to stand. Therefore, stand. Then Paul goes on to describe all these pieces of the armor of God, how that accords with truth and righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, prayers that overcome and conquer, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit.

He says, be watchful to this very end with all perseverance and supplication for the saints. So perseverance there is another way of saying stand and withstand. That's the whole point of Ephesians 6, 10 and following.

This need to stand. Without spine, you cannot stand. Without spine, you cannot withstand. Without spine, you cannot persevere. What Ephesians 6, 10 and following does is it drops us into the reality of the Christian life as a life engaged in spiritual combat.

And that is a reality that we are often dull toward. Paul is not dull toward that. In fact, he encourages us, don't be ignorant, don't be dumb about the schemes of the evil one. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood.

You're not actually struggling with that skeptic or that well-mannered atheist in the bookstore or that professor that seems out to get you or that friend that now stands over against you because of you.

We're not wrestling against flesh and blood. We're wrestling against spiritual principalities of power, the darkness of this age, the evil one that has the whole world under his sway. We rightly confess that the risen Lord Jesus is enthroned as king over the world, but we forget that all that Scripture has to say about that king and his kingdom.

It's advancing against the gates of hell. And the prince of the power of the air, the one who has this now overwhelmed realm, the strong man who's now been bound, still writhes about, deceives, puts in bondage men and women.

These are the spiritual realities that we're up against as the people of God. It's the reality of spiritual warfare. And Scripture wants us to understand this is the primary realm. It's the primary realm.

In other words, we tend to live as though the tangible experiences of our sensate life is the primary reality, and everything else is ethereal and somewhat loosely attached to reality. Angels, demons, the prince of the power of the air, these things seem almost abstract.

These things truly aren't as real, as rugged as what I can feel and taste and smell and touch. Scripture says, no, it's precisely the opposite. These tangible things that seem so solid and real to your sensate experience are actually the things that are passing away.

The present form of this world is passing away. It's the spiritual reality that is the primary reality.

It's more real.

It's the reality. Paul is framing it in this way. Pull back the curtains of your experience of life. The Lord has opened your eyes to see. It's not flesh and blood. It's not the things you can see and feel.

It's not the names you can name. It's hostile powers of darkness. It's a spiritual reality of warfare. That is the primary reality. So, of course, to speak of spine must begin here. We cannot speak of spine apart from spiritual warfare.

We can't. There's no need to have spine if there's not a wrestling against the hostile powers of this evil age. If the Christian's fight is not a fight against the flesh and the world and the evil one, then there's no need to have a spine for that kind of fight.

There's no need to withstand or stand or persevere. Just believe the right things and try to order your life as best as you can and go on your merry way. This is not the way that Paul describes the Christian life here in Ephesians 6.

So we ask the question as a whole body, as a mature body, do we expect spiritual warfare? Do we understand that's the primary reality that we're living within? Is warfare, spiritual warfare, our corporate expectation?

Do we believe we have an enemy? You can't fight if you don't believe you have an enemy. If you don't believe you're at war, you'll never go to war. Do you realize you have an enemy, an enemy of your soul, who stands over against you as much as the lover of your soul stands for you and with you?

What does it mean to be more than conquerors in Christ if there's not a kingdom that Christians are conquering, if there's not a warfare that's engaged? Do we live in that reality? Do we live in that truth?

Do we live like that truth? Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his exposition of Ephesians 6, this is just a snippet. He had many sermons coming out of this passage. Listen to this. Many Christian people seem to be disappointed when they find the Christian life is a fight.

They seem to have the idea that the moment you become a Christian, you'll never encounter any problems or difficulties. There will be no fight. There will be no struggle. Effort will not be required. So when they find, in fact, that there are many difficulties and a mighty battle to face, they are utterly discouraged.

And of course, the moment that discouragement enters, they're already made weak and in danger of becoming slack or lazy. Soon they tend to mope about and feel sorry for themselves, and they ask, why is this happening to me?

The very tone of that voice shows they are already defeated in their heart. You see what Lloyd-Jones is saying. They weren't living in the primary reality. They weren't expecting a fight. No wonder they weren't looking to have spine, courage, conviction, perseverance.

When you read the Psalms and you see how many of the Psalms are a call for courage, a call to trust in the Lord. The Lord's on my side. Why will I fear? Whom shall I fear? What can man do to me? It's showing us the reality of this kind of struggle, of this kind of warfare.

Quit ye like men, have a spine, have some clarity. Remember that in this fight the Lord will prevail. Are you on the Lord's side? All of the Psalms speak out of this kind of conviction. Paul is writing Ephesians 6 out of this kind of conviction.

He knows that combat comes with the call. Combat comes with the call. And so he tells Timothy, listen, Timothy, Endure hardship. Withstand, have some spine like a good soldier. He describes his own life as fighting the good fight of faith.

He knows it's a fight. He knows it's warfare. When I was a youngster I had this illustrated encyclopedia of World War II. All my friends were playing Super Mario and I was looking at World War II images.

My favorite volume in that set was a set of, it was a volume full of propaganda posters. And every poster was a variation on come on and join the fight.

Buy war bonds.

Go get them boys. Come work hard. We'll supply if you're willing to fight. And every image had some picture of strength, of courage, of zeal. Everything looked heroic, looked triumphant. And that was the idea.

They were trying to inspire men to rise to that call. To go on and face the enemy with strength and with courage. That's how Paul conceives of the Christian life. He says I'm fighting that fight. I'm rising to that occasion.

I'm persevering in this quest toward the victory of Christ. It's a victory that's already been accomplished but it needs to be consummated. That victory needs to actually conquer the rest of this fallen world.

Until the glory of the Lord covers the whole earth like the water covers the sea. Oskar Kuhlmann, the German New Testament scholar, he described that. And he would know more than most. He described the exaltation of Christ as D-Day.

June 6, 1944 when all of our troops made it onto the beachhead and finally had a foothold in Europe on the road toward victory in Germany. And D-Day was the decisive battle. The Germans knew that. That's why they had such strong defenses.

And they put their great leader, the Desert Fox, Rommel, to create this Atlantic seawall. And the Allies did all they could to deceive and get their forces thinned out. But the decisive battle was D-Day.

If we could make it on that beachhead, the victory was inevitable. But the E-Day, victory in Europe, was actually going to be after a long, difficult slog through the Ardennes Forest, the Battle of the Bulge.

And so Kuhlmann said that's simply the exaltation of Christ and the consummation of His victory. The decisive battle was already won. It was won at Calvary. It was won with an empty tomb and a Savior that has risen to the right hand of the Father.

That was D-Day. And having that foothold secure, His kingdom is advancing. Just like the Allies are marching toward Berlin. That doesn't mean the victory is easily won.

It's hard fought.

It's inevitable. It's assured. That force is weak and only weakening. Our forces are only growing and strengthening. Victory is assured. But the struggle is real. The fight is bloody. That's how Paul understands the Christian life.

Listen to Lloyd-Jones again. If the church gives the impression to the world that she is but a collection of people who are holding one another's hands and saying nice, comforting, sentimental things, she is finished.

She is useless in a world like ours today. The devil and his forces are active. They know they need to fight. We need to know that we need to fight. The church is not a place in which people do little but sympathize with one another.

That is a totally wrong conception of the Christian church. You see what he's getting at? It's what I was saying at the beginning. If the church is only a tender heart, where is the spine? Where is the primary reality in which the church abides?

We're at war. That's just the reality. We're at war as individual believers against our own flesh. And the world that seeks to pull us and drag us away from the light and the truth, and the evil one that seeks to ensnare and bring us back into bondage, that's the war of every individual.

Don't you think a congregation of believers that are under that kind of warfare are going to face a whole different level of that warfare? It's because we're ignorant to it, we're naive to it, that we're susceptible to the snares and lies of the evil one.

We do half his work for him if we're ignorant to that spiritual reality. It's a wrong conception of the church, as Lloyd-Jones is right to say, rooted in the fact that we often don't live as if we were facing an enemy.

So how do you think about church? How do you think about our body? What is the primary reality of our life as individual Christians, as a corporate body? Does it accord with Ephesians 6, 10 through 20?

Or is that utterly foreign, almost out of place? It seems almost mythical. It's not something experiential. How do we think about church? Is it a weekly break from the busyness and demands of the world around us?

Or is it a battle, a battle that's taking place every day? It's at the very core of our life. What does it mean for a church to think of itself as a combat unit? Every soldier bearing hardship and doing their part in this good fight of faith.

A warfare, to be sure, not against flesh and blood. Not as some of the sand bullets and tobias of the political right would have us think. We have to make sure that we have no part with them. There's all sorts of necessary constraints on co-belligerence.

We need to know that if we understand the primary reality. Satan has many snares. Our primary struggle is against flesh and blood. But it's not the flesh and blood that we see and name. It's the principalities and powers at work through flesh and blood.

That's our primary reality. We wrongly view the church as a filling station for the weak. Or worse yet, a country club. When in fact, the church is often described as an army, a mighty host following the Lord of hosts into battle.

When you get to the very end of Deuteronomy, what do you see? You see Moses encouraging the people, be strong, have courage, the Lord is going to take you into the land. And then at the very end of Deuteronomy 31, we come to Joshua 1.

And what does Joshua repeat? Be strong, have courage, the Lord fights for us.

Let's go.

Do you see, we often think there's this privatized bubble in which we conduct Christianity. And there's no sense of forward momentum. There's no sense of a king with a conquering kingdom who rules the nations with a rod of iron.

There's no prophetic mantle for the church to say, kiss that son, lest he be angry. His arse is kindled in a moment. And if we fail to see that primary reality, we will not engage the war as good soldiers.

We won't have spine.

There's no need to have spine if we're not in a struggle, a struggle for our own souls and for the souls of others. It's not just a war within my mind. It's not even just a war within my body. It's a war against the world.

It's a war against not just the flesh. It's a war against the evil one himself. That's how Paul speaks in Ephesians 6, 10 and following. But we don't think that we're battling the world, the flesh, and the devil, and so the church has become spineless.

For this lack of understanding about the reality of spiritual warfare, the church becomes spineless. Now, Paul knew a thing or two about the needed strength to stand and where that strength ultimately comes from.

He had to stand and withstand all sorts of obstacles, all sorts of artillery from his own failing flesh, from the treachery of those that were accompanying him, from the opposition of those that stood against him.

How many of us have had people making some pact to assassinate us? That was Paul's life? I always wonder, it's like, did Luke figure that out, and then he broke that news to Paul? Like, Paul, did you know this was?

No, I had no idea. It's amazing to think about. I'm sure there are other church leaders today in parts of the world that are persecuted who have those kinds of forces against them, and what Paul recognizes is that's not even the flesh and the blood.

It's actually these powers and principalities at work behind them. Paul knew a thing or two about these tremendous forces and the real carnage and the real sorrow and the real suffering that they brought with them, and yet he endured, and that's why he's calling the church,.

Stand, stand.

He recognized where his strength comes from. It's not a promise that the Christian has the ability to form their own spine or become their own strength, but it's rather a relenting to the ultimate power, the might of Christ.

Remember how we began Ephesians 6. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. So that's where the spine comes from. It's the strength that Christ gives and Christ alone can give.

It's not something that the Christian can manufacture. When Paul learned to withstand, when he learned to persevere through struggle, he learned that in Christ. It was through Christ and from Christ and in the presence of Christ.

He says in Philippians 4, I know how to be abased, I know how to abound everywhere, and in all things I've learned to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer. 4 .13, I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me.

So the spine is something that Christ gives. The strength is what Christ provides. It's His own strength because His body is His own flesh. He cherishes it and loves it, so He strengthens it. He invigorates it.

He causes His bride to stand. Spurgeon, as I have to quote Spurgeon at least weekly, Spurgeon often, he said, do I find brethren who say, oh, I hope I'm not too timid. Oh, I hope I'm not too quick-tempered.

Oh, I hope I'm not too idle. Oh, I hope I'm not too impatient. Oh, I cannot persevere in anything. My dear brother, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. There is no corruption you face, no obstacle too great, no evil propensity, no failing.

You cannot overcome if you seek to overcome it through Christ. That's Paul's experience. It wasn't me. It's Christ in me.

That was His lived reality.

It's not my strength, not my conviction, not my endurance. It's the presence of my Savior at work in my life. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live. Christ lives in me. The life that I'm now living, I live in the flesh with all that that means.

All the weakness, the frailty, the fickleness, the setbacks, and yet even in this flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. Christ was in Paul.

Paul was in Christ.

He was conscious of that communion and that became his strength. He says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, the Lord was with me and strengthened me. He recognized that. He could, in other words, see where his paltry inability ended and Christ's almighty power began.

I know where I would be if it was just me.

Nowhere.

Apart from Christ, I can do nothing. I see it's his strength. Overwhelming. Overcoming. Overfilling. Abundantly. So that courage to stand, provided by the strength, the might of Christ, leads to, in Ephesians 6, the courage to speak.

Speaking the Mystery of the Gospel with Boldness

Ephesians 6, beginning in verse 18. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all of the saints and for me, that utterance may be given to me.

In other words, that I can speak. That I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. That's spine.

So the standing leads to the speaking. The whole point of standing, the whole point of withstanding, the whole point of persevering, is that the mystery of the gospel may be made known. You stand that we may speak.

That's the flow of Ephesians 6. Put on this armor, so that, like me, you may be able to do this. It's not just withstanding. The whole point of standing is that you may overcome the works of darkness.

That you may take every thought captive to the risen Lord. That you may overthrow all the lies and deceits and shine like lights in the world. So the standing leads to speaking. The spine enables the vocal cords, if we could put it that way.

If I could be blunt, there's no point in standing if we're not willing to speak. What does it mean to stand? In our day and age, with the cultural forces against the gospel, to stand is to speak. And to speak is to stand.

And Paul understands that. Pray that I'll have utterance. Pray that I would open my mouth boldly. Pray that I may speak boldly. That's how I ought to speak. In other words, I ought to have that kind of clarity and conviction.

I ought to see that God is much bigger than any of the men, any of the rulers and princes I may come against. What was Paul's commission on the road? Well, we get an interesting little vignette. The warning goes out as people are fretful.

Paul, a Christian? Paul, coming our way? No, thank you. And what does the risen Lord say? I will show him what things he must suffer for my sake. Paul was acutely aware of that. And yes, it was also his commission, he will speak before rulers.

And so he did. Philippians 3 holds together standing and speaking, or in other words, having a spine, having conviction so that we may witness, so that we may be a testimony,.

In this way,.

Do all things without complaining and disputing that you may become blameless, harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine like lights in the world.

I would key in on that little phrase, a crooked and perverse generation. What does it look like to shine like lights in that kind of darkness? It looks like a straight spine standing in the midst of everyone else crooked and hunched over,.

Morally speaking.

I don't want to shame anyone. I don't think I've noticed anyone with scoliosis, but I remember having to do the scoliosis test.

In grade school.

You know, pretend you're diving, and then, you know, you're all nervous, like, am I the hunchback of the class?

Oh, no.

Paul is figuring this generation as morally perverse, depraved. They're writhing in darkness. It's how we're born into this world. We're born complicit in these ways. Our flesh corresponds to the desires of the world, the pride of the world.

It's all crooked. It's all crooked. It's all hunched over. It's not upright. It's not clear and stable and strong as it should be.

It's not righteous.

It's not light. It's darkness. And in that morally crooked generation, Paul says, stand. Stand up straight. Have some spine. Have some moral courage. Have some conviction. And if you can stand up straight in a crooked generation, you will shine like lights in the darkness.

It's that moral clarity, that moral courage. Christianity breeding men and women of conviction. This is the story of church history. We did it last year on Sunday nights. The moral courage of men and women who knew the truth and were set free by that truth and were willing to die for that truth.

The enemy doesn't know what to do with that. The world can't make sense of that. That is standing upright. And those that are hunched over in crooked take notice. For some of you in the workplace, standing upright might be some slight little thing.

The joking you won't take part in. The little things that ebb away or sneak away from the company's profits or the company's goal. You find a way that you can go and... I remember working in the plastic factory and we had all these big racks with all these storage bins and one of my co-workers figured I could take a pallet and keep the outside of it intact and carve out an interior and have a little nap place.

And other co-workers would help this man be complicit in his crime. If a manager was coming, they'd go knock on the pallet and he'd kind of stumble up and pretend he was keeping busy doing something.

That's crooked.

You being the worker that refuses to do that is standing upright. That's salt and light. Now we know if we've been upright in situations like this, if you actually work as you ought to work unto the Lord, you're not going to get a lot of pats on the back, are you?

You're shining like light. And what do we know from John's Gospel? Men hate the light. They love darkness. Turn that light off.

Get rid of that light.

You think you're so much better than us. Oh, look at the goody two-shoes. The holy rollers finally come in for his shift. You see? What does it take to be able to be that kind of light? It takes spine.

They may mock me. They may disown me. They dissociate from me. They may make my work harder. But I know what I'm doing is right. That's spine. That's backbone. You think of some of the ladies in this church.

It takes a lot of spine, a lot of courage to follow the Christian path as a woman in today's age. That will set you at odds and perhaps has set you at odds with others in your family or neighbors or former friends.

What do you have in order to keep pursuing what God has revealed to you from his word, about what he desires a woman of faith to be and how she's to order her character and order her life and order her home and how she's to understand and perceive her marriage?

What do you need to be able to do that? You need spine. You might need a stronger spine than men to be able to follow through on that in this life, in our present day. The point is it's a crooked generation in which we live and the call to have spine is a call to stand upright, whatever that cost may be.

And so there's a missionary emphasis. The tender heart can't do all the work. In fact, there's some work that the tender heart can't do. It's the work that only a spine can do. If I could put it this way, it ought to be that people come to know our tender heart because of our spine.

I think a lot of churches have that backward, potentially. They like to pretend that for 13 years we can give you nothing but an approving, tolerant, tender heartedness and at some point you might find some little fleck of spinal cord somewhere in that.

And I would say no, actually far better to have spine. And as people are struck by that contrast, as the morally hunched generation sees people standing upright, they say, why do you run like this?

Why do you work like this?

Why do you order your life like this? That curiosity gives way now to the tenderness, to the humility, to the beauty and glory of the gospel. Well, I do this because I was saved, you see. I was saved from my sins.

And because I serve a great savior, I now live in this way because this is the way he calls me to live and this is the blessed way. This is the right way. And you should start standing upright too. You see this idea of this missionary emphasis.

It's overcoming a crooked and perverse generation. This is what it means for us as individuals to have spine. This is what it means for us as a church body to have spine. We stand upright where others hunch over.

We are straight where others are crooked. That's what it means. It's conviction, whatever the cost. It's strength to withstand that cost, to persevere through that cost. Some of you are young believers.

You don't know what it's like to lose close friends. You don't know what it's like to be isolated or alienated. Maybe some of you are just at the beginning of that. It's a sorrowful path at times when Christ brings a sword and it cuts through the ones that are closest to you, friends and family members.

How can you possibly face that call without spine? It's the moral clarity that gives away moral courage. If you have moral clarity, if you see the truth rightly, if you see the contrast between darkness and light, if you know the way of God and you know the way of this deceiving world, then you will have moral clarity in a way that you can actually have moral courage.

Now you can act in light of what you know. And to have spine is to have moral clarity as well as moral courage. Now there's some dangers, of course, that come with having this courageous spinal stance in the church of God.

We need to remember, we're always holding this together with a tender heart. I was struck by the example in Pilgrim's Progress. Remember, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress and it was such a wild success, this great allegory of the Christian's pilgrimage to glory, that he ended up writing a second part about Christian's wife, Christiana, and her children making their way toward the celestial city.

And in the second part of Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan introduces a character named Valiant for Truth. Valiant for truth. Courageous for truth. Bold for truth. And when he introduces himself in the story, he talks about his latest victory.