Considering Temptation
July 24, 2025
C.S. Lewis Devotional No. 5: Considering Temptation
Do you ever imagine that the devil or devils tempt you? C.S. Lewis did. In one of his most controversial and popular works, The Screwtape Letters, Lewis proposes a conversation between two of Satan’s minions as they consider ways to disrupt a follower of Jesus’ life. The book, which first appeared in a series of essays in an English journal, drew an unexpected popular audience. By creating a world where the devils were in dialogue, Lewis provided a window into how humans both think and are compromised.
In our present world, the devil (Satan) is rarely mentioned and barely a believable concept. I was standing in line getting ready to board a plane recently and the lady behind me began a conversation with another person – “Yes, if it were not for ‘religion,’ this world would be much better! People are basically good, but they create all this other stuff to try to control us. If they would just leave us alone, we would be fine.”
My first thought, as a historian, was that this person knows absolutely nothing about history. With or without religion, history seems to suggest that we are just rotten to each other. The story of the Bible looks far more plausible in light of actual historical circumstances.
In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis imagines what the devil is like by considering a conversation with the spiritual forces of the dark side tempting a Christian to leave the faith. Among the lessons we learn are the following:
- “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts . . . Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.”
- “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.”
- “Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead.”
- “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken and still obeys.”
- “When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamor of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”
Each of these points, and many more, deserves attention, but the one I resonate the most with is the first – the gradual road to disobedience. In that context, the road to Hell is a gradual one where the “enemy” gains a foothold through small, incremental steps that begin to move one off the path of obedience. Perhaps this is similar to people who are on diets to lose weight; they did not get into their current condition by eating one giant meal in 24 hours. The weight was put on slowly, one “cookie” at a time, over periods of months or even years.
The spiritual life seems to me to have similar patterns. One does not move outside the faith through drastic steps, but small incremental choices that slowly make it less comfortable to follow God. One morning, you wake up and God’s wishes – the paths he designed for followers – are no longer a consideration. You do not even notice the change because it has developed over such a long period that life without God just seems a natural conclusion.
This seems to be evident throughout the Bible in the stories that writers craft about real humans trying to live and flourish in society. Although God had warned the Israelites to “remember the signs,” most often they forgot them, and they found ways to accommodate the culture they were a part of. They took wives and husbands who did not believe in Yahweh or the biblical text. It seemed harmless at first – I mean, these were good people they were interacting with – but it slowly dragged them in a different direction.
The biblical writers provided counter examples to the norm to encourage people to hold fast to the truth – Ruth, who was not a follower of Naomi’s God (in fact she had married Naomi’s son but was outside the faith), pledged to follow Naomi wherever she went, and that her God would also be Ruth’s. Joshua had to tell the people that it was time to choose – if you wished to follow Baal, then follow him. But as for Joshua, he and his entire family chose (and continued to choose) to follow Abraham’s God.
I have been a college president for more than 18 years, and one of the conversations that I consistently have is with parents who rightly wish that their children follow them in their commitments to God. They emphasize to me that they want the college to make “sure” that they follow Jesus and the biblical truths we share. Whether it is through our Bible requirement, our chapel program, our discipleship programs at the university, or through the extensive network of Christian mentors who are part of George Fox, we are also committed to that outcome: Students who attend and graduate from George Fox should be effective followers of Jesus.
It is true that sometimes students, despite parental care, prayer and the commitment of the university, choose a different path that is inconsistent with the one that Christ would chart for them. Amid the frustration we have when we experience a loved one making this choice, we often look to see who is to blame. At times, there may be someone or some group that has failed. But most often, I have found the path away from Christian faith to be the product of dozens or even hundreds of small decisions made over many years.
As Lewis made clear in The Screwtape Letters, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one with no dramatic turns. Our role, either as parents or the university, is to continue to place Christ in front of our students, knowing that God is continually seeking to make himself known to them. The best example we can provide is modeling Christian discipleship daily.