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Monday, August 18, 2014

LEWIS ON "HOPE"

"Mere Christianity" discussion again today

   
Interesting insights by C.S. Lewis



“We have longings that can never be fully satisfied in this world. Those longings are an indication of a fulfillment only available in the next world/Heaven.”

Hope means that we are to look forward to the eternal world (but not as a form of escapism).

Hope does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.

Historically, the Christians who made the greatest difference in this world, are the ones most fixed on the next

“Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters.”

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of ‘Heaven’ ridiculous by saying they do not want ‘to spend eternity playing harps’. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them.

The biblical language of heaven: harps, crowns, gold, etc., are metaphorical for…
  • Harps: Music-> ecstasy
  • Crowns: united with God in splendor, power and joy
  • Gold: timelessness, preciousness, no-decay
People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.




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