In all of Jack’s published works, again and again we find great gems of wisdom and knowledge; passages keep appearing that leave us stunned and amazed at the great depth of comprehension that this man exhibited. In the thousands of letters of his enormous correspondence, again and again we find words of warm, compassionate advice to people all over the world who had approached him by mail with a problem. Others, desperate under the thrall of some horrific experience, turned to Jack for solace. He responded not with merely trite and easy utterances glibly borrowed from some self-help book found in a library of such dreary tomes, but with cogent and well-thought-out answers to their problems and difficulties, were they spiritual, emotional, or merely mundane. In the pages of the published volumes of his letters1 we find such wisdom on so many matters that in today’s world of specialisation it is hard to believe that one man could be so knowledgeable and so understanding about so many topics of human striving. The truth is that he wasn’t, or at least he wasn’t all by himself.
As Sir Isaac Newton wisely said: “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” And Jack himself would have been the first to admit that much of his almost unbelievable wealth of knowledge and understanding of so many things of the world came from his voracious reading habits. Since his early childhood, Jack would devour books—books of all kinds, shapes, sizes, and content, and he remembered almost all that he had ever read. Jack knew that the wisdom of the world was all to be found within the pages of books, and he sopped it up like a sponge.
However, there was more than merely worldly wisdom in what Jack read, for the Holy Spirit of God is also present in all great literature. Furthermore, Jack had guidance—guidance that he checked and perused every day, and guidance that he sought and entreated every day. For as well as being a man who relentlessly studied the Bible, Jack was also a man who prayed, continually seeking the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit. He put the problems of others before his maker as often if not more often, and as earnestly if not more earnestly, as he put his own. To seek out the real origins of the godly compassion, understanding, and wisdom with which Jack’s writings are filled would take many years of study and deep thought. We are fortunate indeed that there are scholars today who have been prepared to devote their lives, or at least a goodly portion of them, to just such an endeavour. What you hold in your hands is the assiduous work of many scholars who, with great skill, have brought together hundreds of things that Jack has written from the Narnian chronicles, his scholarly essays, his Christian apologetic works, and even his letters to friends and strangers, to show us how, through the torturous paths of life and literature, they all lead back to the One True Source, the Bible.
Every quote from Jack in this volume can be associated with what he himself learned and took away from certain passages of Scripture, processed within his powerful intellect, and then used in his works, to entertain and always to teach as well the things so vital to human thinking and survival. How often have we read a passage from one of Jack’s books and thought Yes! as the ring of pure truth vibrates with that delightful, familiar chill down our spines and we pause in our reading and gaze sightlessly and unfocused out of the window for a moment to let that truth settle in our minds.
There are two main additions to the knowledge and understanding that we can gain from the study of this Bible. One is just how much of Jack’s thinking was directly and powerfully influenced by his own biblical study—how his mind was challenged and instructed by the Maker of all that is by the texts of His book. And the second is just how an honest mind, working with the guidance of God, along with the benefit of years of careful reading and with the purest of motivation, can make the sometimes seemingly complex and even obscure meanings hidden within the biblical texts suddenly become simple and glaringly obvious to those of us with lesser minds. If you are one whose intellect is greater than Jack’s was, whose education is better than Jack’s was, whose reading is wider than Jack’s was, and whose faith is stronger than Jack’s was, I would very much like to meet you; but don’t bother with this book as you will know already all that it teaches, but for those of us who live on this planet, this is indeed a very valuable work.
1. The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, vols. 1–3 (New York: HarperCollins, 2000, 2004, 2006).
C. S. LEWIS AND THE BIBLE
by Jerry Root
As a liberally educated Oxford don and later Cambridge professor, C. S. Lewis was well aware of the fact that to understand Western culture—let alone culture in general—one ought to know the Bible. He believed that no other book had such a profound influence on the literature of the world as this one book, for even the Quran instructed its followers to know the Gospels and the Psalms. He clearly saw the profound value of the Bible as a religious book and wrote,
Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only “mouth honour” and that decreasingly. For it is, through and through, a sacred book. . . . It demands incessantly to be taken on its own terms: it will not continue to give literary delight very long except to those who go to it for something quite different.2
Once Lewis became a theist, even before he became a Christian, he began his lifelong practice of daily Bible reading. For Lewis, Bible reading was as natural to his daily routine as eating or sleeping. From the time of his conversion, the atheist turned Christian most often read passages prescribed in the Anglican prayer book, but his method of reading, study, and meditation varied. Sometimes he simply read from cover to cover the King James Version (also known as the Authorized Standard Version) or the Moffat translation; and as a medievalist he was also familiar with the Coverdale Bible. Sometimes, as his published letters indicate, he would focus for a time on a particular book of the Bible such as Romans or the Psalms. Often, as a trained classical scholar he would read frequently from the Greek text of the New Testament. No matter what section of the Bible captured his attention at any given time, this one thing must be said about Lewis: he was a man of the Book. Toward the end of his life Lewis was asked what he thought of the practice of daily devotions. He answered,
We have our New Testament regimental orders upon the subject. I would take it for granted that everyone who becomes a Christian would undertake this practice. It is enjoined upon us by Our Lord; and since they are His commands, I believe in following them. It is always just possible that Jesus Christ meant what He said when He told us to seek the secret place and to close the door.3
Lewis faithfully got into the Bible each day, and it is clear from all he wrote that the Bible got into him. In his writing, Lewis sought to focus on what he called “mere Christianity”—that is, those things most central to Christian faith and teaching, and that which is most central to the Bible. From the Scriptures, all that is essential to faith and practice is drawn. As spiritual questions arise out of the text, Lewis intersected with those questions and developed profound apologetics for the faith, including his well-known commentary on whether Jesus was a “liar, lunatic, or the Son of God.”
C. S. LEWIS AS A GUIDE FOR BIBLE READING
Lewis’s popularity as a writer who transcends all Christian traditions is evidence of how widely he has become a trusted voice and a spiritual guide for those confronted with life’s biggest questions. His years of faithful Bible study as well as his ability to state things clearly and imaginatively reveal that Lewis had the ability to open more than wardrobe doors. His wide background of reading literature of the Western world informed his perspective so that in his one voice