INSPIRATION

 Inspiration

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 When I was bored as a child while stuck indoors because it was raining out, my mother would say, ‘Why don’t you paint a wee picture or write a wee story?’ Often, I would end up reading (mostly looking at the pictures!) because the muse seldom came upon me. I wanted to be outside exploring rather than stuck inside the house inside my own head. Whereas a blank sheet or canvas are an artist’s allure, inspiration is their inkwell or palette. Lack of inspiration produces only sunless sunsets, stories without words, reflective of a dry inkwell or palette.

From whence comes inspiration. From being surrounded by inspiring things perhaps? Looking out a rain spattered window at wet streets as a kid was not. Looking out of a window at a snowcapped Mount Wellington as an adult was! But what about John Bunyan? (1628-88) If a picture paints a thousand words, then those same words can be used to inspire the writer. Bunyan began writing an allegory with only a picture in his mind. Surrounded by four prison walls, after having already written his autobiographical Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, he began to work on The Pilgrim’s Progress; a sequence of word pictures presented by an omniscient narrator. If this reminds you of the Bible, it should. Bunyan was steeped in Scripture. He was a writer and a preacher.

When we talk about inspiration, we usually mean inspired in the sense of deep and meaningful. However, Biblical inspiration means that God used men, using their own thoughts, to write down what He wanted. He is the Omniscient narrator using their word pictures to tell His story. Whatever the Biblical genre, whether history, prose, poetry, parable, prophets, wisdom, law, gospels, epistles etc., the Holy Spirit was the inkwell into which the writers freely dipped their pens. Some speak of ‘red letter’ Bibles, where the words of Jesus are written in red ink. This may be an apt picture, that of the writers dipping their pens into inkwells filled with Christ’s blood! However, the whole Bible was written by Jesus about Jesus (John 5:39), for the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Bible’s writers, comes from the Father and the Son.

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The longer title for Bunyan’s allegory is The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to That which is to Come. From Genesis to the Book of Revelation, like Christian in Bunyan’s allegory travelling to the Celestial City, so the Bible is about pilgrims (believers, i.e., Christians) travelling from this world (i.e., this fallen creation) to that which is to come (i.e., the restored creation). The garden at the beginning of the Bible becomes the garden-city at the end. Progress, i.e., the Pilgrim’s progress.

Jesus is the eternal Word. ‘And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God… And the Word became flesh…’ (John 1:2, 14). He is the ‘Pilgrim’, ‘Immanuel, God with us’ (Matt. 1:23). He was the One in the Garden with Adam and Eve. ‘And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Gen. 3:8a). He was the One Joshuah challenged as Israel entered the Promised Land, the Man with the drawn sword (Josh 5:13-15). The appearances of Christ all through Scripture before He became flesh could be multiplied. But what is more inspiring than ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ (1 Cor 2:2)? His resurrection perhaps? His ascension to the Celestial City? Surely the most inspirational is the picture of Christ returning to the earth with the Celestial City with all the children of God (Heb. 2:13; Rev. 21:1-3). Get inspired. Read God’s Word today!