Through the Mind's Eye of Milton
The Splendor of 'Paradise Lost'
When is the last time you curled up on the couch with a work of truly great fiction? I don't mean the latest bestselling spy thriller or murder mystery. I am talking about a work that engages your intellect, your emotions—even your faith. Better yet, when is the last time you read a book by an author who is a true master of the English tongue? Who uses words like precision tools to give you new perspectives on age-old truths?
I guess it has been a while for all of us. That's okay, because I have a recommendation for you. It is a book by one of history's greatest Christian writers—English poet John Milton.
Born in 1608 and raised in a pious Christian home, Milton considered entering the clergy, but decided to serve God as a kind of priest-poet. Today he is generally ranked second only to Shakespeare as the greatest English writer of all time. Milton's first mature poem, written when he was only 21, is titled On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.
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Just listen to the exuberance of the first lines (particularly as we approach Christmas):
This is the month, and this is the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring.
And he is just getting warmed up. The joy of his Christian faith could not be more evident.
Milton's most famous work is his epic poem Paradise Lost, written much later in life, after he had gone blind. Paradise Lost deals with the story of Adam and Eve and Satan in the Garden of Eden. It attempts, in Milton's words, "to justify the ways of God to man."
My friend Dr. Ken Boa, who is a popular teacher in our Centurions training program, notes that writing the book-length poem was no easy task, particularly for a blind man. But Boa says that Milton's blindness gave him—as deafness did Beethoven—an almost preternatural ability to focus on his work, enabling him to see with his mind's eye and produce a classic poem about Satan's revolt against God and the tragic fall of mankind. Maybe the most famous line in that poem is the one spoken by the Devil: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."
So why don't more Christians know about John Milton? For one thing, Milton, like many great writers of the past, can be difficult to read. And sad as it is to admit, we Christians are not much more self-disciplined or rigorous about what we read than non-believers.
That is why I want to recommend that you check out our "Great Books Audio CD" series by Ken Boa. In the audios, Ken guides the reader through the books, teaching them the lessons that the author intends. This month it is Paradise Lost, but there are other classics in the series as well that have helped shape Western civilization: books like Augustine's Confessions and Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamozov.
Before you dismiss these thought-provoking works in favor of grabbing the latest thriller, remember the advice of another great writer: C. S. Lewis. "It is a good rule," Lewis said, "after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."
Ken Boa's teaching of Paradise Lost fits the bill this month.
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From BreakPoint®, December 20, 2007, Copyright 2007, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. "BreakPoint®" and "Prison Fellowship Ministries®" are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
