a) The world's top-selling books of all time, with Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan at number 5. b) The English Civil War caused John to think… c) John became a Christian and then experienced many family deaths and poverty. d) John became an author and preacher. e) The government-run Church was against all the Independent Churches. f) John Bunyan was in and out of prison for many years. g) He wrote approximately 40 books. h) In the late 1980’s Terry Waite was a hostage and he took comfort in John Bunyan’s situation…

1. Teachers note:
Topics we will
look at.
See more Free Lesson Plans at:
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a) The world's top-selling books of all time, with
Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan at number 5.
b) The English Civil War caused John to think…
c) John became a Christian and then experienced
many family deaths and poverty.
d) John became an author and preacher.
e) The government-run Church was against all the
Independent Churches.
f) John Bunyan was in and out of prison for many
years.
g) He wrote approximately 40 books.
h) In the late 1980’s Terry Waite was a hostage and he
took comfort in John Bunyan’s situation…
John Bunyan lesson plan famous Christian
[i]

2. They may have just had a big character, were good at their job,
helped others or changed the way people think.
We are going to look at someone famous from history who helped
people change their lives for good.
He was a Christian and he wrote many books.
One of his books is among the top ten best-selling books of all time:
[ii]
A starter to set the scene:
Leonardo DiCaprio
Q. Do you know of anybody whose life seemed attractive to others?

3. The graph shows the Bible as the best-
selling book of all time.
At number 5 we can see a book called
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ which has been
translated into more than 200 languages.
The author’s name was John Bunyan and
he was born in 1628 at Elstow,
one mile south of Bedford in England.
1. The Bible estimated 5 billion copies sold
2. The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung 900 million+
3. The Qur'an at least 800 million
4. Don Quixote. 500 million
5. The Pilgrim’s Progress. 250 million
6. A Tale of Two Cities 200 million
7. The Book of Mormon 190 million
8. The Lord of the Rings 150 million
9. The Alchemist. 65-150 million
10. The Little Prince. 140 million
11. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. 135 million
12. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. 120 million
13. The Hobbit. 100 million
[iii]

4. His father was a tinker who wandered around mending pots and pans for people.
England was in civil war and John at the age of 16, joined the Parliamentary army which was
fighting against King Charles l and his army.
Q. What would you have thought about that?
[iv]
About a year later his friend asked him
to swap places with him while they
were laying siege to the King’s army.
As his friend stood on sentry duty he
was shot and died.
John was not a Christian at that time.

5. Two years later he left the army and took up the trade of his
father as a tinker.
When John Bunyan was 20 he married an orphan girl whose
father had died, and the few things that he had left to her
were some Christian books.
John was challenged by what was written in them, and he
became a Christian.
They were very poor and they had virtually no possessions.
They went on to have four children, the firstborn was a
daughter who was blind.
[v]
Q. What is a tinker?

6. For several years he was not satisfied with his own faith.
He had changed from a rough character to a man who held good Christian values,
but he felt that there should be something more,
and he wanted to feel changed within himself.
Then suddenly he received such a feeling of peace from God and of heavenly joy,
that it marked the end of his doubts, fears, and despair.
When John was 27 his wife died leaving him with the four children.
In the next 2 years, John started to write Christian books
and he was also proving that he was a preacher.
Q. What is a preacher?

7. Answer: A preacher is someone who explains the things in the Bible,
and who introduces Jesus to the ones he is talking to.
At that time the Christian Church consisted of two groups:
1) One group was the long-established Church of England which was
under the authority of the king of England.
Many of the ministers of these churches had accepted the job because
it offered a position of authority over the people of the parish.
Therefore many of them were not gifted at explaining the things in the Bible,
and a lot were probably not even Christians!
This was very frustrating for the Christians who wanted to hear a lively
sermon based on the Bible.
So a number of people started going to the ‘other’ group:
[vi]

8. 2) This second group was the Independent Churches, known as ‘Non-Conformists’ who
would not ‘conform’.
They wanted to be separate – ‘independent’ from the king of England, and independent
from the authority of the Church of England.
They wanted to be free to worship in the way that suited them.
[vii]
Unfortunately, the Church of England and King
Charles ll reacted very badly to this.
They wanted to stop the independent
preachers from preaching and they wanted to
close down all the independent churches.
So a law was passed making it illegal to preach
and illegal to worship outside of the Church of
England (Anglican churches).

9. Q. What do you think of the king being able to force you to go to a certain church?
One year after John had married again, when he was 32 years old,
he was arrested because he had gone to preach at a nearby village!
He was charged with not attending his local Church and for holding unlawful Christian
meetings which disturbed the good local people,
and which was against the law of the king of England.
John answered the judges verdict with:
[v]
“If I were out of prison today, I would preach the gospel again
tomorrow, by the help of God.”
He was put in Bedford prison until he learned how to obey the king.
John’s wife who was pregnant at the time, was so shocked by the
news that she went into early labour and the baby died.
Q. What do you think of John Bunyan’s answer?

10. It was thought that they would hold him in prison for just a few weeks and then they would release
him.
But one year later his wife appealed to the judge to get him released, but she was denied.
Another year went by and John applied for his case to be brought before the judge,
[viii]
but the Court Clerk altered John’s papers so
that his case wouldn’t be seen for about four
years.
The Prisons then were cold, dark, and
unhealthy places to be.
His small cell had some straw for a bed, a
table, a chair, and a bucket for his toilet!
The prisoners received very little food and so
they relied on family members to take food
into the prison.

11. [ix]
John’s daughter took him a bowl of soup and some other food every day.
But his family barely could afford to live themselves, so John used to make shoelaces in his
cell so his family could sell them to make a little money.
In addition to making shoe laces, he wrote about 6 books.
Then in 1666, he was released, but very quickly arrested again!
He remained in prison for a few months
and then he was released again.
So he went to one of the independent Church meetings,
where he was arrested.
He was put back into Bedford prison for 6 more years!
Q. What do you think of John Bunyan?

12. At the age of 43, he was released from
prison along with all the other
Christians who had chosen to be a part
of the Independent Churches.
Then John Bunyan was given a license
to preach from the king!
So he and some friends bought a barn
in Bedford and used it for their
Independent Church meetings, and
John became an independent minister
there.
[x]

13. But this freedom didn’t last very long, because
the king withdrew the Independent’s licence to
preach, so John was again arrested and put in
prison for six months where he wrote the book
‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ which has become
known throughout the world.
After John Bunyan was released he wrote about
40 more Christian books and then in 1688, at
the age of 60, he died.
He had 4 prison stays for a total of about 13
years.
Q. How important to him was
his faith in Jesus Christ?
[xi]

14. But that is not the end of his Christian ministry, because it lives on in his books.
One modern example of how his ministry stills speaks to people was when a Christian called
Terry Waite, was held as a hostage in Beirut for 5 years, from 1987 to 1991.
[xii]
At times Terry
found his
imprisonment very
difficult to cope
with.
Can you see on the
map where Britain
is?
Where is Beirut?

15. But a Christian lady in Britain decided to write an encouraging note to Terry on a post card that
had a picture of John Bunyan in his prison cell.
She didn’t know where he was being held – because it was a secret location.
So she just put on the card:
Terry Waite
Beirut.
Somehow the card got through to Terry and he was extremely encouraged by,
not just her letter, but that it had a picture of John Bunyan in his prison cell.
The thought of how John had spent all those years in prison due to his faith in Jesus Christ
gave fresh hope to Terry to go on persevering.
He was released after 5 years.
Q. How would we address a letter to someone?

16. Photo credits:
[i] John Bunyan portrait image:
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "John Bunyan
[three portraits]; An allegorical representation of Mr. John Bunyan." The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-017f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.
[ii] Leonardo DiCaprio image: https://pngimg.com/uploads/leonardo_dicaprio/leonardo_dicaprio_PNG8.png
[iii] Top selling books of all time image: https://notmanywise.uk/ licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
[iv] English Civil War image: https://pixabay.com/photos/english-civil-war-reenactment-1712677/
[v] Tinker image:
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Art & Architecture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Tinker." The
New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1815. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-e3ae-d471-e040-e00a180654d7
[vi] Church of England image: https://notmanywise.uk/ licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
[vii] Nonconformist image: The barn-like Quaker meeting house at Come-to-Good in Cornwall.
https://the-past.com/feature/hidden-houses-of-worship-discovering-the-development-of-englands-nonconformist-chapels/
[viii] John Bunyan in prison image:
The original uploader was Brian0324 at English Wikipedia., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
[ix] John Bunyan portrait image:
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "John Bunyan [four
portraits]" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-0182-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
[x] 17th century barn image: https://jmleeconstruction.co.uk/portfolio/listed-building/
[xi] Book image: https://www.christianfocus.com/products/920/pilgrims-progress
[xii] The position of Beirut image: Google Maps.