John Bunyan

John Bunyan was born in Elstow, Bedfordshire, England on this day, November 28, 1628. His home was a small thatched cottage, and his father was a tinker, who spent his days pushing a cart along the roads, stopping at homes to fix metal pots and pans. As few people could afford to purchase new pots when old ones became holed, they would mended time and time again,

Young John received a grammar-school education, but like most sons of his day, he learned his father's trade. During the English Civil War he served as a soldier. At nineteen he married, and his Christian wife led him to try to reform his life (she was an orphan whose father had left her only two books; Puritans. Her name is unknown). But John found himself constantly slipping back into old habits. Though he lived well enough to impress his neighbors, he described himself as a "painted hypocrite."

In 1651, John began attending an independent meeting at Bedford and was moved by the pastor's intense biblical preaching. He began to pore over the Scriptures, until the conflict within him ended in the assurance of God's grace in his life. Salvation had come to John Bunyan.

In 1661 the authorities sent John to Bedford jail for his preaching because he was a Reformed Baptist and not part of the Anglican Church, the official church. He remained there until 1672, when Charles issued the Declaration of Indulgence, extending leniency to non-Anglicans. He could have left at any time had he promised not to preach.

In 1675 Bunyan again found himself in prison, and began his greatest work: The Pilgrim's Progress (which went on to become the world’s second best-selling book behind the Bible).

He died in 1688.