Outside Readings- Screwtape Letters, Rawley

I have recently finished reading the Screwtape Letters written by C.S. Lewis. The book is a compilation of letters from a more experienced demon to one who is still learning how to damn someone and promote sin. When I started reading this book, I was really scared but it turned into something that taught me how to recognize the devil and where he was trying to attack me. The differences in the things that Screwtape tells Wormwood and the things that the New Testament tells us is unbelievable. One of the lines in the book is, "Fun is closely related to Joy-- a sort of emotional froth arising from the play instinct. It is very little use to us. It can sometimes be used, of course, to divert humans from something else which the Enemy would like them to be feelings or doing: but in itself it has wholly undesirable tendencies; it promotes charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils". Screwtape refers to God as the Enemy which is what we usually refer to Satan as. Screwtape warns Wormwood not to let his Patient do anything that the Enemy holds sacred or gives us. This book is eye-opening but intense at the same time. In the dedication, Lewis quotes Martin Luther in saying, "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear to scorn". I love that thought.