That Submission Thing

On this day in 1954, C.S. Lewis named Dickens and Tolstoy as two of his favorite authors saying that both wrote well about affection.

“All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own fashion.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.

God’s description of a happy family includes submission.
It is a given that all Christians are to be in submission to Christ.
In addition, Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Ephesians instructs all Christians to submit to one another.
He goes on to describe what that submission looks like.
He reminds the wife that her relationship to her husband should be guided by the given that we are all to submit to one another as to Christ and mentions that submission includes respect.
He gives the husband further instruction. In addition to submitting to Christ and other Christians, the husband is to dedicate his life specifically to the spiritual, physical and emotional welfare of his wife. (As the recipient of this sort of submission, I have no problem with the concept.)
To children, God, through Moses and the apostles, promises that the best way to “live well and prosper” is to obey your parents.

Ephesians 5: 21-33
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 6:1-3
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—“so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” (Deuteronomy 5:16)

Simplicity Itself

On this day in 1932, C.S. Lewis admitted to his brother Warren that he had begun to take Communion. Both brothers, having been raised without Christ, had become Christians.

C. S. Lewis and the Inklings were an educated lot who wrote volumes about Christian faith and practice, but the basis of their faith and salvation remains quite simple:

Romans 10: 9-11 NIV
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Holy Days

“How do you make a day holy? By seeing that it is holy already, and behaving accordingly." Joy Davidman Lewis, Smoke on the Mountain.

The same is true of the Christian life. How do we make ourselves holy? We cannot. But we can “work out our own salvation.” (Philippians 2:12). In other words, we can recognize that God has made us holy and behave accordingly.
I John 1:7 - But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Joy Davidman Lewis was the author/poet wife of C. S. Lewis. Their life together and the triumph they experienced through her illness and death are chronicled in the film and subsequent book, Shadowlands. http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001188.cfm

White as Snow

“Warren and C. S. Lewis attended Walt Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ on this day in 1939.” Around the Year with C. S. Lewis and Friends, compiled by Kathryn Lindskoog
Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at her widow sewing . . . And after a while she gave birth to a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony; and she named her Snow White. The Brothers Grimm, Fairy Tales, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

 My sister Paula was born with unusually large, blue eyes, rich dark hair and a beautiful voice. When she was quite young, maybe eight, she took vocal lessons and performed in a recital. She sang “Someday My Prince Will Come” from the Disney movie, Snow White. The song has a vast range and is difficult to sing even for adults. She sang it beautifully. She still has a lovely voice.
As children, my sister and I were trained to envy and ridicule each other. We have struggled to become friends as adults.


Matthew 18:21, 22 - New International Version (NIV)
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."