66 Books You Must Read Before You Die

At some point early in this century or before, people started to talk about what they wanted to do before they died, their bucket list as it is called. This soon transmuted into lists of places to visit, films to see and books to read. We are now familiar with lists such as 100 Books to read before you die or The forty best books to read before you die. Such lists include novels such as Jane Eyre or 1984 and non-fiction titles such as The Diary of Anne Frank. Occasionally, you will see spiritually helpful items such as Augustine's Confessions or Pilgrims Progress mentioned and even the Bible itself and its sixty six books in such lists but not often.

The 66 best read books of all time

When we consider how massively influential the sixty-six books that make up the Bible are, it is perhaps surprising to learn how little read they are. Surveys suggest that many intelligent people have never actually read the sixty-six, even some who profess to be Christians.

This is strange in some ways as the sixty-six books that form the Bible are together the best selling, most widely available, most often translated books on planet earth.

When it comes to those sixty-six books, the Bible is far and away the best selling set of books of all time. The Guinness Book of World Records estimates that more than 5 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. Other texts are not even close to that figure. The Quran - only 800 million copies; The Book of Mormon - only 120 million. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong or the little red book has several hundred million copies in print but is nowhere near the Bible in number.

The Wycliffe Global Alliance tell us that the world's 7.9 billion people speak some 7378 languages. At present 717 of these languages have all 66 books translated and 3495 languages, some 7.04 billion people, have some part of the Bible. Work is currently going on with a further 828 languages, covering another 67.6 million people.

There are people who cannot read the sixty-six books of the Bible for themselves, then, but a vast number can - and yet so many of them choose not to do so. While they are busy reading Moby Dick or Lord of the Rings, the sixty-six get short shrift.

Encouraging people to read the Sixty-six

So what can we, we who have read the sixty-six, or most of them, do to encourage others to read them?

It is generally agreed that the best place to start is with one of the Gospels is. Mark is shortest, Matthew is good for religious people and Luke is for anyone. John also suits everyone but is different to the others in being more theological in style. All the sixty-six are about the Lord Jesus Christ but it is most obvious in the Gospels which provide us with portraits of Jesus, focusing especially on his death and resurrection.

Only two or three others of the sixty-six are seen under separate cover. Paul's Letter to the Romans is sometimes done like that. That is useful as it sets out Paul's theology for us in a systematic way. Do read Romans. The Old Testament Book of Psalms is also sometimes seen like that. It contains 150 hymns and prayers reflecting on God's Law and the coming Messiah. The book is best loved by those already converted to Christ.

New Testament

The 27 books of the New Testament are often seen bound in one volume, of course, either with or without the Psalms. Once people have read the Gospels, one would encourage them to read the Book of Acts, also sometimes found under separate cover. It gives the history of the church from the Christ's ascension to the end of Paul's three missionary journeys.

Most of the rest of the New Testament is letters. First, Paul's 13 letters to churches and individuals. There are nine to churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessalonica then four to individuals. Of the latter, the two to Timothy and the one to Titus deal with matters of particular interest to pastors who should read and re-read those books.

Next is the Letter to the Hebrews. We are not sure who wrote it but, if not Paul, it must be by someone in his circle. It particularly focuses on the High Priesthood of Christ. We then have seven short general letters - three by John, two by Peter, one each by James and Jude. These are important too and not to be neglected.

The last book in the New Testament is Revelation (not Revelations). It is a book full of symbolism and not easy to read or understand but once you start spotting things like the way the writer, John, uses the number seven, it begins to make sense. One great help to understanding it better is to get to know the Old Testament books.

Genesis to Esther

A full Bible not only has the 27 books of the New Testament but the 39 books of the Old Testament too. These are again all about Jesus Christ but because they were written long before he was born this is usually less obvious. These books contain prophecies, types and shadows of what was going to come. Chapters, like Isaiah 53 are very obviously about Jesus but in some cases this is much harder to spot.

The first five books were written by Moses and take us from the world's creation to the time just before God's people enter the Promised Land. Genesis and Exodus are easy to read as they are mostly story but Leviticus and Numbers are not so easy nor is Deuteronomy.

After those five come Joshua and Judges, taking us from the conquest of the land to the time just before the first king of Israel. After Judges there is a little book called Ruth, which is not only a charming story but a real pointer to King David and to Jesus himself.

Next come three big books, so big the Jews divided each of them in two. First come the Books of Samuel then the Books of Kings. They take us from Samuel, the last of the Judges, through Saul, David and Solomon on to the kings who ruled over the divided kingdoms north and south, down to the time when Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. The third book, Chronicles, goes all the way from Adam to the exile. The opening chapters are not easy to read as they are mostly genealogies. There are things in Chronicles you will not find anywhere else so it is a must read.

After Chronicles comes Ezra and Nehemiah, both about the Jews' amazing return from the exile. The Book of Esther follows, a remarkable story about the providence of God to his people when still in exile. The striking thing about it is that it never mentions God by name. It would be great book to start with for anyone wanting to read the Bible.

Job to Malachi

After all that history, we get five books usually referred to as books of wisdom. The first, Job, is from a time before Moses and deals with the difficult subject of suffering. The beginning and end are easy to read but many chapters lie between, not always easy to read, where Job's friends try to prove to him he is suffering because he has done something wrong, which we know he has not. It is a fascinating and important work that is worth reading and re-reading.

We have mentioned the Book of Psalms, mostly by David. There is also the Book of Proverbs, mostly by his son Solomon. A large part of Proverbs is taken up with proverbs, brief and pithy sayings oozing with wisdom that point in one way or another to Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God. In this section we also have The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, not always easy books to interpret but full of wisdom about our relationship with God and with one another.

The rest of the Old Testament is given over to the prophets, major and minor. Major and minor refer to the length of the books they left, not their importance. There are four major ones and twelve minor ones, all worth reading. Of the major ones, Daniel who lived in exile in Babylon is perhaps the easiest, as the first six chapters tell stories about him and his three friends. The second six chapters are more like Revelation. Isaiah is long but there are many prophecies of Messiah that are full of interest and plenty of encouraging verses about the future. Jeremiah and Ezekiel are among the most difficult books to read but are worth reading for the way they point forward to Christ. Where would we be without Jeremiah 31 or Ezekiel 36? With Jeremiah there is a bonus - a little book called Lamentations, a lament over the destruction of Jerusalem. Right in the middle there are some tremendously encouraging words about how great is God's faithfulness.

The last twelve books are all prophets. The Book of Jonah is the best known. It is different to the others and is well known for how it tells the story of Jonah being sent to Nineveh, refusing to go, then being first swallowed then vomited out by a great fish. The other minor prophets, with strange names like Habakkuk or Haggai, are all worth reading too. The first, Hosea, is all about the love of God. Most of the minor prophets are short. Obadiah is only one chapter. It is not always clear who prophesied when but the last three, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, all prophesied after the return from exile. It would be another four hundred years after the last of these before John the Baptist began to prophesy and make way for Messiah Jesus.

How many?

So how many of these sixty-six have you read? How many of them do you know well? They are the most important sixty-six books in existence. Some are more important than others, it is true, but all are God breathed and have something important to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ and serving him. Do not allow the dust to gather on these amazing books. Read them and read them again. They will be more valuable to you than anything by Dickens or Tolstoy, as great as those writers were, or even Calvin or Spurgeon for that matter. If you never get to read The Great Gatsby or Brave New World it is a pity but if you neglect these sixty-six books it will be a tragedy indeed.

In 2014 Andy Miller published The Year of reading dangerously where he describes how he read some fifty books he had never got round to reading before. How did he do it? Just by getting on with it. There was no big secret. What about you and these sixty-six? If you read three or four chapters a day, you could easily read all sixty-six in a year. There are various plans that will take you through all the books in a shorter or longer period. You will never regret time spent reading them. So get started today.

This article first appeared in In Writing and also appears elsewhere on this blog

Never mind the width, feel the quality (on readiing)

Considering the number of books which many of ns own, shouldn't we be better Christians? Gary Brady takes a fresh look at reading habits.

More is not necessarily better is an oft forgotten adage when it comes to the subject of books. If Solomon wrote, 'Of making many books there is no end,' and 'much study wearies the body', nearly three thousand years ago, what would he say today! What is the result of our embarrassment of riches? Does the number of books currently available to the average British believer - way in excess of anything previous generations have known - make him a better Christian? With more books on prayer, do we pray any better? With more books on holiness, are we any holier? With far more teaching available, are we any wiser?

Honesty compels us to answer in the negative. How often do the lives of Christians from less affluent cultures, or less affluent times, put us to shame? Where are we going wrong?

UCCF and IVP have recently expressed concern about a rising generation of students who do not read! Obviously, all the books in the world will be of no help if no-one buys them, or if we buy them but do not read them. Back in the sixties, the author Anthony Burgess noted that the owning of a book had become a substitute for reading it. A recent magazine for serious Christians had an article entitled Making an Assault on those Unread Books. Undoubtedly, some Christians are guilty of treating books like ornaments rather than resources, but I believe there is a more subtle problem which needs tackling.

TASTERS, SWALLOWERS OR CHEWERS?

In one of his Essays the Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon made an oft quoted remark: 'Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested'. The problem, it seems to me, is that there is far too much tasting and swallowing, but very little chewing and digesting. In days gone by many believers, and some ministers, had very few books - The Bible, Pilgrim's Progress and Foxe's Book of Martyrs formed the complete Library for some. (This was the reason for Mrs Spurgeon's Book Fund. A tradition carried on by the Banner of Truth and others, especially overseas where similar circumstances still prevail.)

When you have slender means you usually take greater care over purchases, and make greater use of what you have. This means that in the past people often bought the best books they could and read them again and again. Books like Luther's Bondage of the Will, and Matthew Henry's Commentary, got into the blood of devout believers, strengthening and blessing them enormously. They, in turn, were a great blessing to others. Yes, previous generations (and our contemporaries in certain parts of the world) did miss out on the tasting and the swallowing leading to greater breadth, but what about the depth? Surely they excelled (and do excel).

COLLECT THE CLASSICS

Ruskin divided books into two classes, 'Books of the hour' and 'Books of all time'. Christian publishers confirm that newly written works tend to sell well for the first six months or so, then fade. A few classics go on selling month after month, year after year. This is encouraging - the classics continue to sell. The important thing, however, is that they are thoroughly read.

How can we ensure that we are not guilty of substituting ownership for readership? What about the following procedure:

1. Draw up a list of 10 'classics,' that all believers should read at least once. Some candidates for inclusion: Augustine's Confessions; Pilgrim's Progress; The Mystery of Providence; John Owen on Mortification; The Autobiography of Spurgeon, or someone similar; D'Aubigne on The Reformation; Ryle on Holiness; The Screwtape Letters, Hallesby or Bounds on Prayer; Packer's Knowing God.

2. Make a specific reading plan that will get you through those books on your list of classics, but which you have not yet read, in two years.

3. Once they are all read, re-read one every six months

4. Read a small portion of one of these classics every day.

5. Ration yourself to just one or two new books every six months. Remember that some new books will become classics, and others are reprints of those that already are. Packer's new book on the Puritans and Volume 2 of the life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones look like being contenders. Be flexible.

When taking up a new book, try to decide if it is for tasting, swallowing or chewing. We are too civil to books. 'For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages' (Emerson). How much time is wasted trying to chew what is only fit for swallowing or trying to digest what was only intended to tickle our taste buds. Publishers, how about labelling your books, taste, swallow or chew?

PRUNE YOUR COLLECTION

My wife is welcome to make any new addition to her wardrobe, provided it replaces something already owned. In fairness, I ought to do the same thing with my library. Pepys, the diarist, determined the size of his library and, once it was full, bought no more. He was obviously more interested in the look of his shelves than in the state of his mind. His policy could be adapted, however. Set a size for your library and determine, once that size is reached, to get rid of a book you already own every time you purchase a new one. This will refine your collection. There may be some regrets perhaps but deal slowly with the tasters, and eventually the volumes only meant for swallowing, will give way to those you will want to return to again and again. Less can have more value and small can be exquisite. Time, money and energy are God-given resources and our books consume large amounts of each. We have a responsibility to ensure that these resources are invested wisely and not just frittered away.

66 Books You Must Read Before You Die

 

This article is in In Writing published for the Evangelical Library

At some point early in this century or before, people started to talk about what they wanted to do before they died, their bucket list as it is called. This soon transmuted into lists of places to visit, films to see and books to read. We are now familiar with lists such as 100 Books to read before you die or The forty best books to read before you die. Such lists include novels such as Jane Eyre or 1984 and non-fiction titles such as The Diary of Anne Frank. Occasionally, you will see spiritually helpful items such as Augustine's Confessions or Pilgrims Progress mentioned and even the Bible itself and its sixty six books in such lists but not often.

The 66 best read books of all time

When we consider how massively influential the sixty-six books that make up the Bible are, it is perhaps surprising to learn how little read they are. Surveys suggest that many intelligent people have never actually read the sixty-six, even some who profess to be Christians.

This is strange in some ways as the sixty-six books that form the Bible are together the best selling, most widely available, most often translated books on planet earth.

When it comes to those sixty-six books, the Bible is far and away the best selling set of books of all time. The Guinness Book of World Records estimates that more than 5 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. Other texts are not even close to that figure. The Quran - only 800 million copies; The Book of Mormon - only 120 million. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong or the little red book has several hundred million copies in print but is nowhere near the Bible in number.

The Wycliffe Global Alliance tell us that the world's 7.9 billion people speak some 7378 languages. At present 717 of these languages have all 66 books translated and 3495 languages, some 7.04 billion people, have some part of the Bible. Work is currently going on with a further 828 languages, covering another 67.6 million people.

There are people who cannot read the sixty-six books of the Bible for themselves, then, but a vast number can - and yet so many of them choose not to do so. While they are busy reading Moby Dick or Lord of the Rings, the sixty-six get short shrift.

Encouraging people to read the Sixty-six

So what can we, we who have read the sixty-six, or most of them, do to encourage others to read them?

It is generally agreed that the best place to start is with one of the Gospels is. Mark is shortest, Matthew is good for religious people and Luke is for anyone. John also suits everyone but is different to the others in being more theological in style. All the sixty-six are about the Lord Jesus Christ but it is most obvious in the Gospels which provide us with portraits of Jesus, focusing especially on his death and resurrection.

Only two or three others of the sixty-six are seen under separate cover. Paul's Letter to the Romans is sometimes done like that. That is useful as it sets out Paul's theology for us in a systematic way. Do read Romans. The Old Testament Book of Psalms is also sometimes seen like that. It contains 150 hymns and prayers reflecting on God's Law and the coming Messiah. The book is best loved by those already converted to Christ.

New Testament

The 27 books of the New Testament are often seen bound in one volume, of course, either with or without the Psalms. Once people have read the Gospels, one would encourage them to read the Book of Acts, also sometimes found under separate cover. It gives the history of the church from the Christ's ascension to the end of Paul's three missionary journeys.

Most of the rest of the New Testament is letters. First, Paul's 13 letters to churches and individuals. There are nine to churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessalonica then four to individuals. Of the latter, the two to Timothy and the one to Titus deal with matters of particular interest to pastors who should read and re-read those books.

Next is the Letter to the Hebrews. We are not sure who wrote it but, if not Paul, it must be by someone in his circle. It particularly focuses on the High Priesthood of Christ. We then have seven short general letters - three by John, two by Peter, one each by James and Jude. These are important too and not to be neglected.

The last book in the New Testament is Revelation (not Revelations). It is a book full of symbolism and not easy to read or understand but once you start spotting things like the way the writer, John, uses the number seven, it begins to make sense. One great help to understanding it better is to get to know the Old Testament books.

Genesis to Esther

A full Bible not only has the 27 books of the New Testament but the 39 books of the Old Testament too. These are again all about Jesus Christ but because they were written long before he was born this is usually less obvious. These books contain prophecies, types and shadows of what was going to come. Chapters, like Isaiah 53 are very obviously about Jesus but in some cases this is much harder to spot.

The first five books were written by Moses and take us from the world's creation to the time just before God's people enter the Promised Land. Genesis and Exodus are easy to read as they are mostly story but Leviticus and Numbers are not so easy nor is Deuteronomy.

After those five come Joshua and Judges, taking us from the conquest of the land to the time just before the first king of Israel. After Judges there is a little book called Ruth, which is not only a charming story but a real pointer to King David and to Jesus himself.

Next come three big books, so big the Jews divided each of them in two. First come the Books of Samuel then the Books of Kings. They take us from Samuel, the last of the Judges, through Saul, David and Solomon on to the kings who ruled over the divided kingdoms north and south, down to the time when Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. The third book, Chronicles, goes all the way from Adam to the exile. The opening chapters are not easy to read as they are mostly genealogies. There are things in Chronicles you will not find anywhere else so it is a must read.

After Chronicles comes Ezra and Nehemiah, both about the Jews' amazing return from the exile. The Book of Esther follows, a remarkable story about the providence of God to his people when still in exile. The striking thing about it is that it never mentions God by name. It would be great book to start with for anyone wanting to read the Bible.

Job to Malachi

After all that history, we get five books usually referred to as books of wisdom. The first, Job, is from a time before Moses and deals with the difficult subject of suffering. The beginning and end are easy to read but many chapters lie between, not always easy to read, where Job's friends try to prove to him he is suffering because he has done something wrong, which we know he has not. It is a fascinating and important work that is worth reading and re-reading.

We have mentioned the Book of Psalms, mostly by David. There is also the Book of Proverbs, mostly by his son Solomon. A large part of Proverbs is taken up with proverbs, brief and pithy sayings oozing with wisdom that point in one way or another to Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God. In this section we also have The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, not always easy books to interpret but full of wisdom about our relationship with God and with one another.

The rest of the Old Testament is given over to the prophets, major and minor. Major and minor refer to the length of the books they left, not their importance. There are four major ones and twelve minor ones, all worth reading. Of the major ones, Daniel who lived in exile in Babylon is perhaps the easiest, as the first six chapters tell stories about him and his three friends. The second six chapters are more like Revelation. Isaiah is long but there are many prophecies of Messiah that are full of interest and plenty of encouraging verses about the future. Jeremiah and Ezekiel are among the most difficult books to read but are worth reading for the way they point forward to Christ. Where would we be without Jeremiah 31 or Ezekiel 36? With Jeremiah there is a bonus - a little book called Lamentations, a lament over the destruction of Jerusalem. Right in the middle there are some tremendously encouraging words about how great is God's faithfulness.

The last twelve books are all prophets. The Book of Jonah is the best known. It is different to the others and is well known for how it tells the story of Jonah being sent to Nineveh, refusing to go, then being first swallowed then vomited out by a great fish. The other minor prophets, with strange names like Habakkuk or Haggai, are all worth reading too. The first, Hosea, is all about the love of God. Most of the minor prophets are short. Obadiah is only one chapter. It is not always clear who prophesied when but the last three, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, all prophesied after the return from exile. It would be another four hundred years after the last of these before John the Baptist began to prophesy and make way for Messiah Jesus.

How many?

So how many of these sixty-six have you read? How many of them do you know well? They are the most important sixty-six books in existence. Some are more important than others, it is true, but all are God breathed and have something important to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ and serving him. Do not allow the dust to gather on these amazing books. Read them and read them again. They will be more valuable to you than anything by Dickens or Tolstoy, as great as those writers were, or even Calvin or Spurgeon for that matter. If you never get to read The Great Gatsby or Brave New World it is a pity but if you neglect these sixty-six books it will be a tragedy indeed.

In 2014 Andy Miller published The Year of reading dangerously where he describes how he read some fifty books he had never got round to reading before. How did he do it? Just by getting on with it. There was no big secret. What about you and these sixty-six? If you read three or four chapters a day, you could easily read all sixty-six in a year. There are various plans that will take you through all the books in a shorter or longer period. You will never regret time spent reading them. So get started today.

(This article also appears elsewhere on this blog)

Reading C S Lewis

Back in my salad days when I was green in judgement, some 20 or more years ago, I remember telling a congregation, by way of application, not to bother to read anything by C. S. Lewis.

I did not say he was of the devil or not a Christian, as some would maintain, but I thought there were better things to read. I remember a young man challenging this statement, which I defended then but would now want to nuance quite a bit.

Like all generalisations, including this one, it was inaccurate. But what prompted such a swingeing generalisation?

I had read some C. S. Lewis myself and had become concerned. Someone had given me The great divorce as a present, and its unbiblical idea that there was a way out of hell, and other aspects of the book, perturbed me.

I had probably decoded errors lurking in the pages of the Narnia tales too. I had never read Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ statement, quoted in Christianity today, at the time of Lewis’s death, saying that he ‘had a defective view of salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement’, but would have picked it up from others who had.

Doctrinal error

A whole catalogue of doctrinal errors have, unsurprisingly, been laid at Lewis’s door over the years.

He appears not to have accepted the infallibility of Scripture (in a letter, he wrote, ‘The total result is not the Word of God, in the sense that every passage, in itself, gives impeccable science or history’); total depravity (he suggests in The problem of pain that the doctrine may ‘turn Christianity into a form of devil worship’); or justification by faith (Roman Catholic biographer Joseph Pearce points out that Lewis believed the sacraments are vital in Christianity — ‘Immediately, therefore, Lewis is excluding the Protestant doctrine of sola fide from the "merely Christian"’).

On the atonement, he says in Mere Christianity, ‘The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter’.

It appears that he believed in inclusionism (‘There are people in other religions who … belong to Christ without knowing it’; see Mere Christianity), in purgatory (‘I believe in purgatory. Mind you, the Reformers had good reason for throwing doubt on the Romish doctrine’; see Letters to Malcolm) and in praying for the dead (‘Of course I pray for the dead’; Letters to Malcolm again). Even if only some of the charges are fully justified, it should give us pause.

So, in this month, the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s death, and a time when enthusiasm for Lewis among evangelicals has never been greater, what should we think of him? Should we read his books?

Prolific writer

Well, first let’s remember that he wrote many books. Over 50 books are currently available with his name on the spine, some being posthumous compilations. There are also three compilations of his letters, which are of biographical interest and often serve to clarify his views at certain points.

The books can be divided, more or less, into three broad categories. First, there are about 14 works of literary criticism and similar academic studies (e.g. The allegory of love, The discarded image). As time goes by, these scholarly works inevitably become more and more dated, but those who are studying in the field of literature or allied fields may well want to read those works. His Studies in words is a fascinating piece

Then there are about 20 works of a more imaginative sort. These can be subdivided into the seven Narnia books, written for children; his four science fiction novels (the trilogy Out of the silent planet, Perelandra (a.k.a. Voyage to Venus), That hideous strength and the unfinished The dark tower; and his poetry (two of these books written while still an atheist).

Narnia

The Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and are available in 47 languages. Some of the stories have been made into successful films.

Early on, Lewis wrote rather coyly that: ‘Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I’d write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out "allegories" to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.'

However, in 1961 he was quite upfront in saying that: The magician’s nephew tells of the Creation and how evil entered Narnia; The Lion, etc, the crucifixion and resurrection; Prince Caspian, restoration of the true religion after corruption; The horse and his boy the calling and conversion of a heathen; The voyage of the dawn treader, the spiritual life (especially in Reepicheep); The silver chair, the continuing war with the powers of darkness; The last battle, the coming of the antichrist (the ape), the end of the world and the last judgement.

A great deal of enjoyment can be had from the Narnia books and the science fiction — even more overt in its Christianity. They are well written stories that appeal to a wide variety of people.

Insights

They also provide flashes of useful theological insight. For example, when the children ask if Aslan is safe, Mr Beaver says: ‘Safe? … Don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.' What we must not fall into, is drawing our theology from these stories. One other piece of fiction of a more theological bent is The Screwtape letters, and its less well known follow-up, Screwtape proposes a toast.

These books are written in a subtle way, apparently revealing how devils see things. Again, there are brilliant moments. Screwtape writes to his nephew and junior: ‘Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts’, and: ‘It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.'

Rather forgotten is The pilgrim’s regress, which Lewis later regretted having written. Jim Packer wrote that when he was newly converted, in 1945, ‘the student who was discipling me lent me The pilgrim’s regress. This gave me both a full-colour map of the Western intellectual world, as it had been in 1932 and still pretty much was 13 years later, and also a very deep delight in knowing that I knew God beyond anything I had felt before. The vivid glow of Lewis’s scenic and dramatic imagination, as deployed in the story, had started to grab me. Regress, Lewis’s first literary effort as a Christian, is still for me the freshest and liveliest of all his books, and I re-read it more often than any of the others.'

Care needed

That leaves some 17 more biblical, theological and philosophically related works. These include The problem of pain, The case for Christianity, Miracles, Mere Christianity, Letters to Malcolm, God in the dock and the autobiographical Surprised by joy. Here one has to be particularly careful. Peter Barnes has noted that: ‘Lewis never regarded himself as a theologian; his strengths lay in his wonderful command of prose and in his clarity of thought.'

Sadly, too many people have turned to Lewis for their theology, to their detriment and often to that of others. In a recent book criticising certain aspects of Tim Keller’s teaching, the influence of C. S. Lewis’s bad theology has been noted.

What a warning that is to us all, that, while we would be foolish to deny Lewis’s wonderful skills as a thinker and writer, we would be equally unwise to suppose he is an unerring theologian. Like all men, his feet are of clay.