JOHN BUNYAN'S MINISTRY

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR’S CALL TO THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY

          Starting with paragraph 265 Bunyan begins to tell of His experience as a minister of the gospel. He recognizes his ability to express God’s Word to the benefit of others and says that it was never intended for men who have gifts and abilities should bury them (270). He records that his gift of preaching was not long exercised until men became aware of their sin and need of Jesus Christ (272).
          His method was begun with where God’s Word begins, that is with sinners and to condemn all flesh by the curse of God’s law due to their sin (276).  Bunyan recognized the gravity of sin and how God viewed sinners. His own struggles were vivid as he showed others how the Word was effectual to the salvation of the soul (280).
     He relates how the religious took offense to his preaching when he would “go abroad”, and rather than argue with them he would present the gospel to see how many of their carnal professors he could convince of their miserable state by the law (283).
     Bunyan was deeply concerned about those false conversions as he says, “those who were awakened by my ministry did after fall back (as sometimes too many did),” likens as his own flesh and blood children going to the grave. But, he counts those who truly converted under his teaching of the word the pinnacle of his own existence (286).