4 – Vanity Fair
Bunyan’s pilgrim, Christian and his friend Faithful come to the town of Vanity in which is a perpetual fair called Vanity Fair. The fair is full of distractions and things to buy. Bunyan comments:
“Now the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town, where this lusty Fair is kept; and he that will go to the City, and yet not go through the town, must needs go out of the world.”
It is impossible to go to the Celestial City – impossible to be a pilgrim – without passing though this town with its distractions and immorality. Vanity Fair, then, is a picture of the world as we know it, with its standards and values opposed to those of God. We cannot avoid living in the world, but we don’t have to make its values our own.
Christian and Faithful attract attention from the inhabitants of Vanity Fair because they are different and they are not interested by the merchandise on offer. Unwelcome attention results in arrest.
Bunyan is making the point that as Christians we should be leading different, distinctive lives from those around. We are not meant to blend into society like chameleons. Our attitudes to possessions, money, sex and power are not to be like those who do not have Jesus as their guide.
Paul writes:
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12: 2 [NIV]
Be a rebel, Paul says! Don’t go along with all that is evil in the world. Instead be transformed, be changed. Transformation is a process, not a single event, so it takes time. And transformation is not something that we do ourselves, but something that God does to us through his Spirit if we will allow him.
Lord God, help me to recognise the values of the world for what they are. Fill me with your Spirit so that I might be changed to become more and more like my Saviour, Jesus Christ.
David Long
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