March 13, 2017 Show with Barry Horner on “The Pilgrim’s Progress Themes & Issues: An Evangelical Apologetic (A Needed Message in the 21st Century in Contrast to the Heresies of ‘THE SHACK’)”

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Barry Horner on Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, and the contrast with The Shack

But today we have, returning to the program, somebody that I urge you to invite to your own church or have your pastors invite to your own church, or if you hear about him speaking anywhere within reasonable traveling distance from where you are, the guest I am speaking of is Dr. Barry Horner, founder of Bunyan Ministries and Future Israel Ministries, and today we are going to be discussing the Pilgrim's Progress Themes and Issues, an evangelical apologetic, and this is a very timely subject in light of the fact that a movie has just been released on another allegory called The Shack, but an abysmal failure in regards to trying to have any kind of a genuinely biblical theme, and it has been actually astonishingly compared, favorably compared with The Pilgrim's Progress, it's been called a modern-day Pilgrim's Progress, but as we will learn today, that nothing could be farther from the truth, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Shepherds Iron, Dr. Barry Horner.

Hello, and I frankly, what we're seeing...

Yes, and I can tell you that Barry Horner does a lecture on, or a presentation on The Pilgrim's Progress, and I have sat through two-hour presentations, three-hour presentations, and I've sat through them probably five to six times at least that Dr. Horner has conducted, and even though I've seen him do this presentation that many times, I was never once bored, I was never once thinking that this was mundane material that I have heard already repeated too much, because he does, you know, change it up a bit when he does these conferences or lectures or presentations, and obviously the facts always remain the same, but he does change them up a bit in regard to the presentation, and I just cannot sing Dr. Horner's praises enough when it comes to this subject especially, and he is considered by many to be one of the greatest living scholars on John Bunyan and The Pilgrim's Progress.

I know that he's embarrassed to hear me say that, but it just happens to be true. And first of all, let's hear something about you personally, Dr. Horner. Tell us about your upbringing, what faith or religion you were raised in, if any, and how you came to know the living God yourself through the providence and sovereign grace that he surrounded you with.

Well, Southern California was...however, back Said, we're not going straight home, we're My sister tells me the same. She can remember that very...America...and I Love to teach it because...

Amen. And we will be repeating this information throughout the broadcast, God willing, but for those of you who would like to look up this information later, and I urge you to do so, you could go to BunyanMinistries .org, B-U-N-Y-A-N-Ministries .org.

That has nothing to do with a foot disorder. This is to do with John Bunyan, the world-renowned 17th-century preacher and author of the Pilgrim's Progress, or Progress, however you may pronounce that.

That's BunyanMinistries .org, B-U-N-Y-A-N-Ministries .org. And before we go into the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the most well-known work by John Bunyan, as I said, the 17th-century evangelist, tell us something about John Bunyan himself.

I know that he was a tinker, which means a mender of pots and pans, that he was not educated very highly, or he was not formally educated in any way that would bring esteem upon himself, but he was a brilliant man who was very biblically literate and very, obviously, gifted with both speech and the pen that gained him such a reputation that even the great John Owen, his contemporary, actually invited John Bunyan to preach from his pulpit.

And John Owen was known for receiving many high levels of degrees in education and so on, and many accolades within formal education. But if you could continue with a description of who this John Bunyan was.

We have to place John Bunyan right. He learned of himself, but he was a member. Yes, if he'd gone to Oxford University, it would have spoiled his speech in London about two hours after. The king heard of it, and King Charles heard about it.

Wow, that's something. That is quite a profound thing to say. Quite a humble thing to say as well. I think this is a lesson to be learned. I know I'm going to probably offend some of my brethren listening from some of the Presbyterian denominations and other Pado-Baptist denominations that require a certain level of seminary education for a person to be ordained.

I would think that someone the likes of John Bunyan and even Charles Spurgeon would give them pause, reason for pause on that note, because if somebody could prove themselves to be an able minister by what he knows and by his abilities that have been given to him by God, wouldn't you think that it is an unbiblical thing to require such a thing as a seminary degree?

I would agree totally. I've got two citizens, but I need them. The main thing is, are they gifted? And usually this comes from people who hear a person's story.

Although he was a licensed doctor, though, a physician.

Yeah, sharply trained there, of course, in the medical field. There are others, like myself, I think we need some help there. A young man, you're not called to the ministry. By the way, I did not mean to disparage seminaries by my comments.

I have interviewed a number.

Of seminary professors and presidents, so I don't want to give anybody the idea that I'm denouncing seminary education. I am just saying that whenever you go above and beyond what the scriptures require, it seems to me a wrong approach.

And one of those things is a requirement that somebody has a seminary degree to be ordained when that is not even a requirement in the Bible.

Right, absolutely. You're absolutely right.

And of course, that is also not to mean that I think that anybody that says that they have a calling or believe that they want to be a pastor, I don't believe that they necessarily are meeting the requirements either, because there are biblical requirements as set out in Timothy and other places.

So what do we know of Bunyan's own upbringing as a child, and what led him to believe that he had a calling to be a preacher himself?

Well, the fact that it wasn't until a young lady that he married at that time had a very reading the Bible, he tells us to begin with, he couldn't understand Paul. He writes later on and says Now when you say he was influenced more by Luther than John Owen, I think that you probably.

Should make it clear, though, that he was not more influenced by 17th century Lutheranism than he was Calvinism.

Oh, yes. When I say Luther, I mean 16th century Lutheranism. Because Lutheranism began to become more formal.

Amen. And he was, if not a Reformed Baptist, because that term didn't even exist back then, but he was a Calvinistic pastor who was Baptistic, I guess is the best way to describe it. Am I correct there?

Yeah, exactly right. In fact, I usually call myself, Bunyan was the same. I must say he's. Now, I know that the 1689 or Second London Baptist Confession, as it is also called,.

Came into print after or just before Bunyan's death, but he was alive for at least 40 years while the First London Confession was available and had been adopted by many churches. Do you know if he had any confessional leaning in that way?

Did he have an official confessional stance on the First London Confession?

To be honest, I think he's again outrouted more. I think there's a J .B. there.

Could it have been John Busby, my co-host?

We can't be sure. We can't make speculations. Now, why was he arrested and imprisoned, no less, during the height of his ministry? Can you imagine if our government said, the only church you can go to is this?

Well, that's what was going on then. Well, that's true. And anyway, Bunyan's taken off. And they said to him, when you go out, you won't be preaching. Because, after all, you're... And John Bunyan refused occasionally.

And remember the tension, the terrible trial business. He has a wife and four children. He has one called Little Blind Mary. And they come and visit him in prison. They do that. Now, attending and ministering, John got some help.

In the government's attitude, he gets... ...shoelaces to be sold, because he could raise money for his family.

Remarkable man.

Amen.

And so, while in prison, he writes The Pilgrim's Progress.

Yes, that's right. Amazing, yes.

And how long did it take him to write this book?

Well, we don't know. We're not sure of the times, except we're pretty... ...for my dream, and then the next section starts immediately. And so I dreamed again. That's it. You know, those... ...incarcerated for their faith.

And so he talks with them, and he shares it with them. And some of them said, no, you don't do that. But others said, yes. The reason we say that is that when it was... ...and Ponder... ...he seemed...

Well, we're going to pick up right where we left off there. And if anybody would like to join us with a question of your own for Dr. Barry Horner, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA. And we look forward to hearing from you after these words from our sponsors, with more of Dr. Barry Horner and our discussion of the Pilgrim's Progress.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today is Dr. Barry Horner. We are discussing the great John Bunyan, a 17th-century hero of the Christian faith who is most well-known for his book The Pilgrim's Progress, but he has written, or had, I should say, written a number of other works that we will mention in a bit.

But if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Barry Horner regarding either the life of John Bunyan himself or on The Pilgrim's Progress, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And we do have a couple of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered. But before I go to them, Dr. Horner, we just reached the point when Bunyan was released from prison and his book, The Pilgrim's Progress, is in print.

And it's after he was released from prison that eventually Owen, John Owen, invites him to preach at his pulpit, correct?

That's correct, yes.

And tell us a bit about what a non-conformist is, because I believe, wasn't John Owen himself a non-conformist?

Well, congregationists, they wanted independency or the government.

And although John Bunyan is often referred to as being a Puritan, he was not technically a Puritan, it's more that he echoed their theology in many respects and some of their other peculiarities, and I say that in a very favorable way.

Well, you're absolutely right there, because he wanted to reform Bunyan, have some Anglican friends, Anglican vicars. And if an Anglican vicar, still in the Church of England, when Bunyan went out there, he'd come up and speak.

Bunyan was a Puritan like, if you want to call it that.

Well, and I know that he went home to be with the Lord at 60 years of age. Anything remarkable about that? Or was it just an average of going home to be with the Lord in your sleep or something of that effect?

Well, the circumstances, you know, are interesting. John Bunyan, because the son wanted to be reconciled with his father. So John Bunyan agreed to go down. He met with the father at well. John Bunyan then gets on his pretty good eyes to read.

When he passed away, for instance, he and the pulpit.

And how many books did he write in total, at least that were published?

He writes, I mean, again, I invite you to go to the website. You've got the three-volume remarkable.

Amen. Well, that website again is bunyanministries .org, B-U-N-Y-A-N ministries .org. Now let's get to the Pilgrim's Progress itself. It is known as an allegory. If you could tell us in more detail, for those of our listeners unfamiliar with that term, what is an allegory, and what is this an allegory of specifically?

It's the time when he vanished away. People love it too. He becomes a martyr.

Yeah, and going back to a specific definition of an allegory, an allegory is a story or a poem that has pictures that is to bring to mind. I'm not saying that it necessarily needs to be illustrated literally, but it has the words convey pictures that have deeper meanings than the pictures you are actually reading or looking at.

Yes.

Very much like the book of Revelation, which is a God-breathed allegory, although not every single portion of Revelation is an allegory, but obviously even the most literalist of fundamentalists have to acknowledge that some of the book of Revelation is allegorical.

Well, yeah, I wouldn't quite make the tremendous, and he goes there.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to make the connection that Bunyan was writing about the book of Revelation. I just meant that the book of Revelation does use some allegorical language. That's all that I meant by that.

Yeah, that's a whole matter of hermeneutics there.

Right.

And so what are the main themes that Christian, the main character, brings to mind when reading The Pilgrim's Progress? Because I believe that although everybody's life here on earth can be very, very different, we don't all have cookie-cutter lives on this earth, whether we are Christian or pagan, but there are some universal things that all of us who are Christians are confronted with and go through that seem to be depicted in this marvelous allegory.

Well, yes, I agree. Again, I mentioned earlier, there are three main characters, the faithful and hopeful. Now, the reason I say that, he goes through a wicked gate, he's converted, did his burdens, and then he comes to, then he has troubles.

He's wondering whether he's one of the elect. He's wondering whether he's committed. Then you'll read about it when you come to faith.

All right, we're going to be returning after this break with more on Pilgrim's Progress. If you would like to ask a question of your own, our e-mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA. And you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable for certain reasons, like, for instance, if you're bringing up something that you disagree with your pastor, something on which you disagree with your pastor, or something of that nature.

I understand that you may want to remain anonymous, but otherwise, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence. And those who are still waiting, I promise I will get to you as soon as we can after the break, God willing.

So once again, our e-mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We will be right back with our guest, Dr. Barry Horner, and more of the Pilgrim's Progress. So don't go away.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read.

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The Allegory of Christian's Journey

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Barry Horner. He's our guest for the full two hours with about an hour to go. We are discussing The Pilgrim's Progress.

And that happens to be the most well-known and cherished book by the 17th century Christian hero John Bunyan. And Dr. Horner is well-known for being one of the most knowledgeable scholars on the life and work of John Bunyan alive today.

And it's my honor to have him on this program again. And I urge you all again to ask your pastors, your elders, or if you are one of those yourself, I urge you to seriously consider inviting Dr. Horner to your church or your parachurch ministry or your school or whatever it is that you operate to speak on The Pilgrim's Progress and or the life of John Bunyan.

He does a masterful job at this. I've seen his presentation probably around five or six times at least. And even though it's multiple hours long, he actually can tailor it according to the length that you desire.

And even though I've been at some of his presentations that are over two hours long, I've never for a minute been bored. And it's just utterly fascinating material. But if you have questions of your own for our guest today, our email address is ChrisOrenson at gmail .com.

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. And my co-host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, has something to say.

Well, yes, as Chris and I were discussing during the break, I've had the experience of thinking, well, you know, I've got this old beat-up paperback somewhere of Pilgrim's Progress. And I agree with George Grant.

You can't buy classics in paperback. But one of the problems I'm facing is as I look at what's out there to buy another copy of Pilgrim's Progress, I want to get both parts, you know, with his wife also coming through, you know, to the Celestial City.

But I also, you know, there's so many updated versions and things. And I know with so many voices out there, liberal theology and all that, I don't necessarily want to get one that's been too updated.

So do you have any thoughts on, like, are you a purist, getting back to the original, and can you still get it, and how do you get it, those kinds of things?