All Louis Life he said, an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just above the grasp of my consciousness. The sweetest

thing in all my life has been the longing to find the place where all the beauty comes from.

But when he was born again, to see the glory of God in Christ, he never said that again, ever.

So how did God transform the heart and mind of C.S. Lewis?

To answer that question, John Piper begins a three-part biographical series on the mind

and the heart of C.S. Lewis in this episode of Light and Truth. This talk was originally given at the Desireing God 2010 conference for pastors. Father in heaven, thank you for your gift to us of C.S. Lewis. I want to be faithful first to you.

Second, I want to be faithful first to you. Second, I want to be faithful to your word. Third, I want to be faithful to tell the truth about CS Lewis and not get him wrong. And I want to tell the story of his influence on me.

And so would you take all of that attempt and make it really profitable for those who hear.

So that their faith would be strong and their joy would go deep and their sense of your absolute truth would be unshaken and they would be mightily influential for the glory of Christ in this world.

I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

My approach is going to be personal.

I'm going to talk about what Lewis has meant most to me,

how he's helped me most. And as I raise that question, as I have many

times over the years as to why this man has been so powerful in my life, the backdrop of the question becomes

increasingly urgent.

Namely, why has he been so significant to me even though he's not reformed and

would barely be called an evangelical by typical American uses of that word.

He does not believe in the inerancy of scripture. He defaults to logical arguments more naturally than to biblical

exegesis. He doesn't treat the reformation with respect, but thinks it could have been avoided,

and calls aspects of it farcical.

He steadfastly refused in public and in letters to explain why he did not go to the Roman Catholic Church but remained in the Church of England.

He makes room for at least some people to be saved

...