FREE: 55 Minute C. S. Lewis Biography
C. S. Lewis has been a massive influence on my life as a Christian from day one. Here is the link to a great BBC biography of the man who created (among many other things) the world of Narnia.
Enjoy!
“C. S. Lewis: Beyond-Narnia” —– Link currently broken. Working on a remedy…
5 clarifications re “Total Depravity”
I’m preaching 5 weeks at our 6pm service at HTD on “TULIP” (or ‘the 5 points of Calvinism’).
Here’s 5 things I’ll be clarifying in week 1 – “Total Depravity”:
- TD doesn’t mean that every sinner is as totally corrupt in his actions as it’s possible to be. Unbelievers can do ‘worldly good works’.
- TD does mean that corruption extends to every part of a man i.e. his mind, his will, etc.
- ‘Total Inability’ is a better label than TD – it better expresses the point that no man is capable of turning to God of his own volition…
- Thus, the doctrine of TD refutes the popular idea that man has ‘free will’.
- Everyone, even the cutest newborn baby, is born in bondage to sin.
It paints a pretty bleak picture, eh? But that’s only one side of the story. Like the other 4 points of TULIP, TD steers us away from man-centred self-glorification, and reveals a sovereign God who is worthy of our worship.
Good resources on TULIP can be found here.
Find it Hard to Read Leviticus?
OK I admit it! I love God’s Word, but I find it hard to read books like Leviticus…
For those of you who are striving to nail-down more regular, disciplined devotional habits, here’s some great advice from John Piper and the ESV Online Study bible.
In addition to this, you can try what I’ve been doing…
Every morning my alarm assaults me at 6am. I plan to get straight out of bed, stumble along the hallway to my Den, sit down on my reading couch, and start the day in prayer and Bible study. I want to do this because I think it’s vital to my survival in ministry, marriage, faith…
BUT. Occasionally I fail and sinfully hit the snooze, and hit the snooze, and hit the snooze……..
So I’m trialling (my hero) Charles Simeon’s method to encourage early morning obedience:
Moule writes:
[Simeon planned to rise every morning at 6am]… Early rising did not appeal to his natural tendency to self-indulgence, however, especially on dark winter mornings. . . . On several occasions he overslept, to his considerable chagrin. So he determined that if ever he did it again, he would pay a fine of half a crown to his “bedmaker” (college servant). A few days later, as he lay comfortably in his warm bed, he found himself reflecting that the good woman was poor and could probably do with half a crown. So, to overcome such rationalizations, he vowed that next time he would throw a guinea into the river. This (the story goes) he duly did, but only once, for guineas were scarce; he could not afford to use them to pave the river bed with gold.
The Quotable Lewis: The End of the World
Currently putting together my sermon for Sunday night on Luke 21.
Lewis has been helpful…
The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph.
The doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne’s question “What if this present were the world’s last night?” is equally relevant.
Frantic administration of panaceas to the world is certainly discouraged by the reflection that “this present” might be “the world’s last night”; sober work for the future, within the limits of ordinary morality and prudence, is not.
For what comes is Judgment: happy are those whom it finds labouring in their vocations, whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying good plans to deliver humanity a hundred years hence from some great evil. The curtain has indeed now fallen. Those pigs will never in fact be fed, the great campaign against White Slavery or Governmental Tyranny will never in fact proceed to victory. No matter; you were at your post when the Inspection came.
C. S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night, (1952)
The Quotable Lewis: Modern Men (The death of manliness cont.)
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)
The Quotable Lewis: Pain
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (1940)
The Quotable Lewis: Christian Belief
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.“
C. S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry? (1945)
The Quotable Lewis: Childishness
“Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.“
C. S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” (1952)
Heroes: Spurgeon on Pastor’s Wives
From his autobiography, “The Full Harvest“:
Churches do not give a married minister two salaries, one for the husband and the other for the wife; but, in many cases, they look for the services of the wife, whether they pay for them or not.
The Pastor’s wife is expected to know everything about the church, and in another sense she is to know nothing of it; and she is equally blamed by some people whether she knows everything or nothing. Her duties consist in being always at home to attend to her husband and her family, and being always out, visiting other people, and doing all sorts of things for the whole church!
Well, of course, that is impossible; she cannot be at everybody’s beck and call, and she cannot expect to please everybody. Her husband cannot do that, and I think he is very foolish if he tries to do it; and I am certain that, as the husband cannot please everybody, neither can the wife. There will be sure to be somebody or other who will be displeased, especially if that somebody had herself half hoped to be the minister’s wife!
Difficulties arise continually, in the best-regulated churches; and the position of the minister’s wife is always a very trying one. Still, I think, that if I was a Christian young woman, I would marry a Christian minister if I could, because there is an opportunity of doing so much good in helping him in his service for Christ.
It is a great assistance to the cause of God to keep the minister himself in good order for his work. It is his wife’s duty to see that he is not uncomfortable at home; for, if everything there is happy, and free from care, he can give all his thoughts to his preparation for the pulpit; and the godly woman, who thus helps her husband to preach better, is herself a preacher though she never speaks in public, and she becomes to the highest degree useful to that portion of the Church of Christ which is committed to her husband’s charge’.
I couldn’t agree more with this!
I thank God that we belong to a church that isn’t too demanding when it comes to the expectations placed on Pastor’s wives, but bloody hell, it can be tough for them!
My wonderful wife Renee expressed her exasperation recently, “I just don’t know what my job is (at church)!” I was quick to tell her that she didn’t have a job at church – just a calling to be my helper.
I wonder if some churches (not yours or mine!) deliberately make the role of Pastor’s wife ambiguous because it means that they can load the lady up with more duties than they would otherwise get away with…?
Spurgeon: He’s the Man.
Books: "A Lifting Up for the Downcast"
This classic written by the Puritan William Bridge is a collection of thirteen sermons preached in 1648 on Psalm 42:11. That’s right thirteen (13) sermons written on a single verse! The Puritans were specialists at taking one verse and writing a book on it (Puritan Thomas Manton preached 45 sermons on John 17!).
Anyway, the reason I’m plugging this book is because so many of us are suffering from spiritual depression and are carrying around the burden of guilt that comes with not attending to the ’spiritual duties’ of prayer and Bible reading – while constantly being defeated by habitual sin, doubt and discouragement etc. etc. etc.
The problem with reading books of our generation that speak on the subject of spiritual depression is that they (for the most part) seek to remedy the shallow symptoms of self-esteem and self-worth rather than plunging the scalpel deep into the heart of the matter: humility, repentance and trust in the righteousness of Christ.
To anyone who would seek to be drawn closer to God in the midst of trials, temptations, paralyzing doubt, and spiritual depression – I would recommend this book (along with Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ “Spiritual Depression”) above any other work that I’ve come across.
You can check prices on both books at Book Depository:
William Bridge, “A Lifting Up for the Downcast” (Puritan Paperbacks)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures”
Heroes: Charles Simeon Takes on John Wesley (kind of)
The Anglican pastor, Charles Simeon, is on of my heroes because he persevered for 49 years as the vicar of Holy Trinity church, Cambridge in the midst of the most scathing and degrading persecution and opposition – particularly from within his own congregation.
One afternoon he was asked by his friend, Joseph Gurney, how he had surmounted persecution and outlasted all the great prejudice against him in his 49-year ministry.
He said to Gurney, “My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory”.
–Great stuff!
I also love this account of his conversation with John Wesley on the topic of Calvinism. Apparently Simeon didn’t want to be known as a Calvinist or an Arminian, but instead wanted to be known as a ‘Biblicist’ (which obviously means he was a Calvinist, right?).
Anyway, here’s a transcript of a conversation that probably serves to remind us ‘Young, Restless, and Reformed’ types to be more gracious and pull our heads in every now and then:
Wesley: Yes, I do indeed.
Simeon: And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?
Wesley: Yes, solely through Christ.
Simeon: But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?
Wesley: No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.
Simeon: Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?
Wesley: No.
Simeon: What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?
Wesley: Yes, altogether.
Simeon: And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?
Wesley: Yes, I have no hope but in Him.
Simeon: Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree.
Wise words from an Anglican bloke whom God used powerfully to reform the church and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Heroes: Spurgeon the Scrooge?
Check out these quotes from my hero Charles Spurgeon…
We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority.
(Charles Spurgeon, Sermon on Dec. 24, 1871).
When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, “Is this a law of the God of Jacob?” and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty.
(Charles Spurgeon, Treasury of David on Psalm 81:4.)
I think, at the end of the day, Spurgeon and I have a similar attitude toward Christmas…
My take is that the Christ Mass has its roots firmly planted in both Pagan and Roman Catholic festivals – and today it serves largely as an opportunity for us to indulge in secular materialist consumerism.
However, Me and C.H. both see the value of using this ‘fallen festival’ as an opportunity to share the Gospel with people who might not otherwise enter our churches… This is a fairly flimsy argument though, as we should be doing everything we can (in my Book) to be encountering people and sharing the gospel with them outside the confines of our church services.
Anyhow, I know a lot of people are passionate about carols, candles, and Christmas trees, so feel free to leave abusive comments below!
Heroes: C. S. Lewis
Continuing my look at some of the great men of history, check out this clip from a documentary on C. S. Lewis. Many of you have read his books but may not be familiar with his conversion story. This is a brief commentary and reenactment showing Lewis’ journey from unbeliever to disciple – a journey of irresistible grace that culminated in him declaring himself to be “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England”.
Lewis continues to astonish me with his ability to explain complex truth in clear and lucid ways. More than any other author, he leaves me thinking “why haven’t I thought of that before?”.
Below is a list of his books that I have on my ‘C. S. Lewis shelf’ at home:
(All are recommended reading!)
Nonfiction
- The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936)
- The Problem of Pain (1940)
- The Abolition of Man (1943)
- Beyond Personality (1944)
- Miracles: A Preliminary Study (1947, revised 1960)
- Mere Christianity (1952; based on radio talks of 1941 – 1944)
- Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (1955; autobiography)
- Reflections on the Psalms (1958)
- The Four Loves (1960)
- Studies in Words (1960)
- An Experiment in Criticism (1961)
- A Grief Observed (1961; first published under the pseudonym «N. W. Clerk»)
- Letters to an American Lady (1967)
- Christian Reflections (1967; essays and papers)
- God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (1970)ed in Essay Collection
- Present Concerns (1986; essays)
- All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis 1922 – 27 (1993)
- Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories (2000)
- Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church (2000)
- Collected Letters, Vol. I: Family Letters 1905 – 1931 (2000)
- Collected Letters, Vol. II: Books, Broadcasts and War 1931 – 1949 (2004)
- Collected Letters, Vol. III: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950 – 1963 (2007)
- The Business Of Heaven:Daily Readings From C. S. Lewis ed. Walter Hooper, (1984)
Fiction
- The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933)
- Space Trilogy
- Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
- Perelandra (aka Voyage to Venus) (1943)
- That Hideous Strength (1946)
- The Screwtape Letters (1942)
- The Great Divorce (1945)
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
- Prince Caspian (1951)
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
- The Silver Chair (1953)
- The Horse and His Boy (1954)
- The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
- The Last Battle (1956)
- Till We Have Faces (1956)
- Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1961) (an addition to The Screwtape Letters)
- Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964)
- The Dark Tower (1977)
- Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis (ed. Walter Hooper, 1985)
Poetry
- Narrative Poems (ed. Walter Hooper, 1969; includes Dymer)
- The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis (ed. Walter Hooper, 1994; includes Spirits in Bondage)
Heroes: JRR Tolkien
I’m on the look-out for good articles that focus on the men in my list of heroes (see my profile –>).
Click here to read one from “Oxford Today” on JRR Tolkien.
It’s a good, brief summary of the man, his work, and some recent developments… Don’t know about the “Lord of the Rings Musical” though!
Also, for Tolkien-philes…
Check out this rare footage of the Don himself – on “the Myth of the Rings”
