shawnethomas

Some of my favorite quotes, and potential sermon illustrations from McGrath’s 2013 biography of Lewis. These are in order as they appeared in the book:

TRAIN UP A CHILD
“Both brothers inhabited imaginary worlds, and committed something of these to writing. Lewis wrote about talking animals in ‘Animal Land’ …”. (p. 14)
The seeds of Narnia were planted while Lewis was yet a child. What seeds are we planting in our children/grandchildren?

THE SERVICE OF LOVE
“There is no doubt that Lewis ended up doing all kinds of menial household chores — running to get margarine from a corner store, retrieving Mrs. Moore’s purse from the bus station, or responding immediately to the sudden collapse of Mrs. Moore’s bedroom curtain rails. But he was the only man in the household, and appears to have willingly pulled his weight to ensure its smooth running. These things had to be done, and Lewis did them. In any case, Lewis came to see such tasks as examples of the tradition of ‘courtly love’, which he declared to be a noble and honourable code of conduct by which a young man might ‘leap up on errands’ or ‘go through heat or cold, at the bidding of one’s lady.’ Lewis might have been able to invest such household chores with dignity and signficance by conceiving them as ennobling expressions of ‘courtly love.'” (p. 97)

IT’S NOT HOW YOU START THAT MATTERS
“His maiden lecture, given on Tuesday, 14 October at University College [Oxford], was attended by a mere four people.” (p. 108) Continue reading →