Entries that relate to C.S. Lewis and his work.
This is a book of prayers, and it is fitting that it should be literally in center of the Bible and is one of its longest books (with its longest (119) as well as its shortest (117) “chapter”), since what is more important to a believer than prayer, and what can be more valuable to … [Read more…]
Overview: Here’s a bare-bones outline of the book: It begins with a quick sketch of Job and his idyllic life as a good and very blessed man, with a big happy family and great wealth. In the next scene, God is meeting with his angels, and God brings up to Satan (!) the subject of … [Read more…]
Three of the Wisdom books — Ecclesiastes, Job, and Psalms — share a common theme: It’s permissible, even expected, that we should kvetch to God about the hardships we face, but this complaining and questioning should be accompanied by faith and trust and a recognition that God knows what He is doing, so that the … [Read more…]
Happy Easter! He is risen! Since I’m writing something about every other book of the New Testament, it would be odd to skip the Gospels. On the other hand, one always worries that it is presumptuous at best to try to boil down God’s word, and that is especially so with the Gospels. What’s more, … [Read more…]
Here’s what we’re saying when we pray the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father — We acknowledge God: His existence, power, benevolence and love (and our love for Him), and universality. On the last point, note that throughout this prayer the first person plural is used — our, we, us — underscoring not only the universality of God … [Read more…]
That is, lessons from the book of Revelation. The book is divided into two parts: The first and shorter is the text of letters that John sends to seven churches in Asia Minor, and the second and longer is John’s apocalyptic vision of the end times. The church letters are report cards, telling each church … [Read more…]
Romans and Hebrews are the two most theological epistles. One reason this is not surprising is that Romans is the only letter of Paul’s that is not tied in with running a church and/or dealing with particular congregants. What follows is definitely not an in-depth discussion of Paul’s theology, but an outline with discussion that … [Read more…]
I read this book in one day, demonstrating that it is both well-written and short (133 small pages). And, while I like Pastor Keller and have read much by him, I have also have to say that this particular book was largely disappointing. Central to the book is a tendentious reading of the parable of … [Read more…]
This book is partly a historical survey of kinds of prayer and ways to pray, and partly a how-to guide on what the author, a Presbyterian pastor in Manhattan and one of the best current Christian apologists and writers, recommends. I would grade it a “B” on both. There’s lots of Luther and Calvin (and … [Read more…]
As the title advertises, this biography focuses on C.S. Lewis’s spiritual life; its method is largely to quote from Lewis’s own words and letters, and there is not a lot of authorial speculation. So the book is straightforward and reliable, but there’s not much to surprise anyone already familiar with Lewis’s life and works. Still … [Read more…]