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Kate is Currently Reading

Kate is currently reading

The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

bookshelves: british, classics, fantasy, fiction, currently-reading

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progress:

(page 32 of 1216)
— 5 hours, 9 min ago

Aug 02, 2026 12:54PM

Kate is currently reading

Mere Christianity

by C.S. Lewis

bookshelves: non-fiction, christian-non-fiction, british, classics, favorites, currently-reading, re-read

Reading for the 2nd time

read in June 2025

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Kate said: "

"Books don’t change people, paragraphs do — sometimes sentences." -John Piper

Well, I have arrived at a book with paragraphs that changed me—in particular, the chapter titled "The Great Sin" in book 3 of Mere Christianity. I read this book in tiny inc

"Books don’t change people, paragraphs do — sometimes sentences." -John Piper

Well, I have arrived at a book with paragraphs that changed me—in particular, the chapter titled "The Great Sin" in book 3 of Mere Christianity. I read this book in tiny increments over the course of ten months; I read this chapter back in January, and it has stuck in my head since then, challenging me to submit my pride to Christ and allow Him into this area that I had no idea I struggled with.

"Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is a nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all." (p. 128)

Meeting this hypothetical man made me realize how unlike him I truly am—all the times I've thought I've been humble and all the times I wouldn't have admitted I envied the people who actually were. This paragraph changed me; it made me long for what I knew I could never cultivate in myself, what could only be cultivated in me by Christ. I'm still struggling with self-righteousness and my unconscious works-based mindset, but Lewis helped me see it more clearly in myself to wage war with it, and for that, I am grateful that he allowed Christ to use him.

Of course, this was not the only gem of a paragraph here. It is not the only thing from this book that still makes its way into my thoughts months later. To detail all of those would take too long. But I must say that I don't think I've read anything that was so delightfully convicting. Lewis points out all of our failures and clearly demonstrates our desperation and condemnation apart from Christ, yet he does it in a way that isn't stabbing (though stabbing can often be necessary, don't get me wrong); his method is at once humble and sober yet merry. He entertains with whimsical style while pointing out the gaping depravity in our hearts. Quite the paradox, but profoundly delightful.

He does have his theological stumbling stones, though (which I knew would be there), such as insinuating that a Buddhist can belong to Christ through focusing on the Christian aspects of Buddhism like love or mercy. For those theological errors, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who isn't solid in Scripture to discern between biblical truth and mere speculation. However, that being said, I was greatly surprised at how obviously biblical Lewis's ideas and analogies are; he stretches out biblical principles like a quilt on a mattress, and he explains how each section of the patchwork fits together and contributes to the whole pattern with incredible practicality and robust logic (seriously! the logic in this book!). He hardly quotes Scripture but is quite the expert at extracting ideas from the Bible and distilling them down into easy-to-understand yet powerful bite-size pieces. He answers many of the common objections to the faith, and his apologetics are just spectacular.

Going back to Lewis's indictment of pride: For all his errors and guesswork, I admire him for his humility. I can presume he didn't think himself humble (far from it), but in his admission of the fact that he isn't humble, his humility begins to shine through (as he himself points out—as we confess greater and greater sin, we are able to be made more and more like Christ as He takes more and more of our mess). Though he's often termed the greatest apologist of our modern age, Lewis admitted that he was just a layman, not qualified enough to tackle denominational differences, seeking only to explain and defend the tenets of Christianity that all of us agree on. He admitted it when he guessed or speculated; he offers commentary that he knows could be shaky and invites readers to set aside whatever they have reason to believe is not true.

I know we can extract heretical beliefs that Lewis held. But at the same time, I think we all need a bit more of the humility he had. We know nothing in comparison to God. We are all reading the Bible, praying, debating, and thinking (hopefully) as logically and faithfully as we can—but we cannot fully know the mind of God. I love theological debates as much as anyone else, but dying on any hill other than that of the gospel because we think we know this particular secondary position we've taken is 100% true is a bit silly, in my opinion. Jesus died for us to be saved from our sin and to rest in His finished work, not to argue and divide over things that only God knows in the first place. That is this book's greatest strength to me, and I thank God that He worked through Lewis—flaws and all—and can still work through us—flaws and all—for His glory. ...more "

progress:

(page 127 of 227)
— Jul 16, 2026 08:49AM

Apr 07, 2026 08:37AM · see review

Kate’s Quotes

“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.”
― John Piper

453 likes

“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

tags: happiness

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“Doing everything yourself isn’t strength. It’s a kind of weakness, really. When you trust other people enough to ask them to help you—to admit your own weakness—there’s strength in that. A three-strand cord is not easily broken. But one strand on its own is sure to break.”
― Christina Baehr, City of Serpents

12 likes