I posted a comment on a recent 2024 post on Mike Ratliff’s site after reading this article which is actually an old short book from the Bunyan Library.
After reading it I was curious 👀 how that was different than the popular Spiritual Formation Contemplative 🤔 Practices, so I did a search on Foster. As I scrolled down the list there were many articles that I saw that would be worth reading but my eyes fixed on an old 2011 one on Bunyan.
A Documented Case of Persecution
Being a Bunyan student….i enjoyed reading his detail account.
I can’t remember exactly when my own reading started, I first mentioned it in January 2010, on my own blog, when two friends Paul and Art began the journey, which after Paul went on to be with Lord and Art moved away, I had two more friends Dean and Pete join me.
We have read several of Bunyan’s writings (currently Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II), but never this one in your post.
Anyway as we remember, Easter week, reflect on way Bunyan describes his own persecution. There are a lot of other examples in the Bible and history.
Nor forget the simple words of Peter, John, Jesus and Paul….
Acts 4:18-19
18 And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.
So I guess in the end my meditation, or at least the activity of my mind was turned towards these aspects of God’s words, and prayer that in freedom we can still share it if any will listen.
Matthew 5:10-12
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
1 Thessalonians 2:14-16
14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
I’ll leave the follow up to those other old posts to another day.
Rainbow Trout 