Today we're pleased to share with you an audio essay written and read by Joe Rigney entitled

Ten Things You Should Know About C.S. Lewis. Joe Rigney is the author of Lewis on the Christian Life,

becoming truly human in the presence of God from Crossway.

Ten Things You Should Know About C.S. Lewis. Written and read by Joe Rigney.

Number one, he was not a professional theologian.

Lewis was an apologist and a scholar of medieval literature. Nevertheless, he was familiar

with Christian theology,

since it served both of those vocations. He viewed his task as translating Christianity into

layman's terms. He thought that this was a much needed task in the 20th century, given

the widespread ignorance of what Christianity taught. He repeatedly suggested that ordination

exams require candidates for ministry to translate some theological topic into the vernacular.

Until a minister can do this, he said, he does not understand his subject, nor will he be much help in converting the unbelieving.

Number two, he believed good stories train us to be human.

We should imbibe good stories. Stories, like nature, furnish us with a collection of images

that help us to understand ourselves and our world. Good readers, Lewis says, mouth over their

favorite lines and stanzas in solitude. Scenes and characters from books provide them with a sort of iconography

by which they interpret or sum up their experience.

Thus, it is essential that the scenes and characters that shape us are, to use a simple word, good.

Good stories, by which I mean faithful stories well told,

train us in what it means to be human.

They teach us to recognize and respond appropriately to the value of reality.

Number three. He understood the human heart.

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