If You Read One Book This Year

If you read one book this year (in addition to the Bible, of course!), read C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.

In this book, the character Screwtape, who is the devil, is teaching Wormwood, his underling, how to tempt people.

This book could be the primary text and curriculum for every psychology program, that is, if those who taught and studied in psychology programs believed in the devil and demons!

If one wants to be fully enlightened in understanding the personal struggle with sin—as well as evil in general—one must read The Screwtape Letters. 

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

C.S. Lewis in the preface to The Screwtape Letters

“But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is ‘the results of modern investigation.’ Do remember you are there to fuddle him.” Screwtape, in a letter to Wormwood, advising him on how to keep his “client” in the dark regarding Christianity, page 4.

This is just the beginning of a magnificent read...

“Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.’” John 8:42-47