In 2020 I attended a life group training where the facilitators shared our lead pastor, Eric Geiger’s top recommended books for all Christians to read. “Mere Christianity” was one of them; over a year later, my life group and I dove in.
Unlike the studies we've done recently, the book did not provide study guides, discussion questions or assignments to read passages from the Bible, but what it did provide was thought-provoking, vocabulary-building, dialogue-enhancing literature, that took us on an adventure and positioned us to live better Christian lives.
From recommended to recommender, “Mere Christianity” is a real world read that I would encourage you to consider.
Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis is a wildly popular and influential writer. He wrote more than 30 books, and is well known for the Chronicles of Narnia, which have sold over 100 million copies and were turned into three major motion pictures. The book is a collection of transcribed speeches that were given during war explaining and defending the Christian faith from an atheist turned Christian.
As I read, I felt like I was having a serious yet informal conversation with a very intellectual mentor. Through that conversation we shared laughs, disagreements, truths and more. There were times that I had to re-read a passage, times every word made perfect sense and still times I had to research or save a question to discuss with my group.
Although Lewis shares that “It is a very silly idea that in reading a book you must never skip. All sensible people ‘skip’ freely when they come to a chapter which they find is going to be no use to them,” skipping chapters of a book still feels like cheating to me. Textbooks are the only exception. I’ve read the book cover to cover including the preface, bios and reviews.
It's hard to share quotes out of context, but here are 15 excerpts that remind us of the nature and position of Christianity and how we can and should live it out. Although it was hard to narrow down, I hope it gives you a peak into the read and more encouragement to pick up a copy.
Photo courtesy of @studywithelsie
Quotes
1. Freewill though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.
2. A Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble - because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ himself carried out.
3. Now, today, at this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance; it will not last forever and we must take it or leave it.
4. People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.
- Dr. Johnson
5. He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.
6. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life.
7. It was through pride that the devil became the devil: pride leads to every other vice; it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
8. For pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up every possibility of love, or contentment or even common sense.
9. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the greatest secret - when you are behaving as if you love someone you will presently come to love him.
10. Daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe.
11. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all you find out the strength of German army by fighting against it not by giving in.
12. The main thing we learn from a serious attempt to practice the Christian virtues is that we fail.
13. Handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying to trust Him, it means of course trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice.
14. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better; just as in in an illness ‘feeling better’ is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up.
15. The war-time posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives it is equally true that Careless Lives cause Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; And we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.
16. The only thing we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.
Which of the quotes stood out to you most? You may have noticed that I provided two bonuses as I couldn’t decide two to delete; they were all significant to me. ;)
Have you read mere Christianity or any of C.S. Lewis's work? Share in the comments below or connect with me on social media @JASMINECTATE.
Hugs and Handshakes,
Jasmine C Tate