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.

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.