John Bunyan: To Live upon God by John Piper

Few have left their mark on later generations like John Bunyan (1628–1688). The author of Pilgrim’s Progress—printed more than any other book in English, save the Bible alone—he was a gifted pastor in Bedford, England. He served twelve years in jail for preaching the gospel without state approval. Bunyan discovered, John Piper writes, that if we are to suffer rightly, we must die not only to sin, but to the innocent and precious things of this world, including family and freedom. We must “live upon God that is invisible.” Everything else in the world we must count as dead to us, and we to it. That was Bunyan’s passion from the time of his conversion as a young married man to the day of his death.