At the southwest corner of St. Peter’s green in the English town of Bedford, a bronze statue of a man sits close to the street. The man’s eyes are lifted to the sky and a Bible rests in his hands; he bears a grave expression, yet he looks ready to speak a word of truth at any moment, to plead with passersby. This, it seems, is exactly how John Bunyan would want to be remembered.
His depiction of the ideal pastor in his famous allegory Pilgrim’s Progress supplied the inspiration for the statue. With his back to the world and his gaze on the heavens, the man was among the select few authorized to guide others along their way to the Celestial City. Bunyan was typical of the Puritans in his veneration of the pastorate. With such a lofty vision for pastoral ministry, one might wonder, how did the Puritans discern who was called by God to this great work?
THE PURITAN CONCEPT OF CALLING
The Puritan concept of calling was built on Reformation convictions about vocation. As William Perkins put it, one’s calling is a stewardship “ordained and imposed on man by God for the common good.”[1] In the
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