Screwtape Letter #10 – Discussion Guide is article #22 in the series: Screwtape Letters. Click button to view titles for entire series
Letter #10
Screwtape talks about “friends”.
Not the TV series –
but the real people in our lives.
My dear Wormwood,
I was delighted to hear from Triptweeze that your patient has made some very desirable new acquaintances and that you seem to have used this event in a really promising manner. … That is the kind of betrayal you should specially encourage, because the man does not fully realise it himself; and by the time he does you will have made withdrawal difficult.
10.1) General discussion – talk about the friends we have / the things we do – how we can be influenced by them. The first parts of this paragraph relate to the times and events when the book was written. Today, it may be other things that could influence us. The important thing is – how do we relate to them? Especially, discuss the highlighted sentences.
As for friends, see Proverbs 29:5-6
Pr 29:5 Whoever flatters his neighbor
is spreading a net for his feet.
Pr 29:6 An evil man is snared by his own sin,
but a righteous one can sing and be glad.
Verse 5 works both ways – we can flatter friends – or they can flatter us.
Verse 6 can sound either really bad or give a false sense of security if we aren’t careful. The catch is that we all face the temptations and have the evil desires. The question is – what do we do about them?
Also see James 1:2-18
Trials and Temptations
James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
James 1:9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
James 1:12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
James 1:16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
No doubt he must very soon realise that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based. … But if you play him well, they may become his. All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. This is elementary.
10.2) What happens when we first start to realize that “something isn’t quite right” – that our new friends / activities / ?? don’t really match up with what we believe?
Being silent when we shouldn’t be – or laughing when we shouldn’t – both are like double edged swords. It’s bad for us – as C. S. Lewis points out, because it can lead us to the point where we actually start to believe what we’re saying (or not saying).
Consider Jesus eating with Levi, the tax collector - Luke 5:27-32
Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners
Luke 5:27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Luke 5:29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Luke 5:31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
And the encouragement from Jesus to hold on to what we have - Revelation 3:11-13
Rev 3:11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The real question is how to prepare for the Enemy’s counterattack.
The first thing is to delay as long as possible the moment at which he realises this new pleasure as a temptation. … By it we rescue annually thousands of humans from temperance, chastity, and sobriety of life.
10.3) Speaking of silence when “something isn’t quite right” – that our new friends / activities / ?? don’t really match up with what we believe. How does this fit in with the things you see in the world today? How does it compare with what’s in the Bible? For starters – check out Matthew 6:19-24; Ecc 1:1-4 & 12:13-14; and look for the word “friends” in Proverbs.
Jesus talks about “Mammon” in Matthew 6:19-24
Treasures in Heaven
Mat 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Mat 6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Mat 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
And then there’s the “expert” on worldly vanities – Koheleth
Ecc 1:1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Ecc 1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
Ecc 1:3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
Ecc 1:4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Other verses
Proverbs 18:24
24 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 17:17
17 A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a time of adversity.
Job 6:14
14 “Anyone who withholds kindness from a friend
forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
Proverbs 27:6
6 Wounds from a friend can be trusted,
but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Matthew 5:25
25 “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.”
John 15:13
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
James 4:4
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Sooner or later, however, the real nature of his new friends must become clear to him, and then your tactics must depend on the patient’s intelligence. If he is a big enough fool you … Finally, if all else fails, you can persuade him, in defiance of conscience, to continue the new acquaintance on the ground that he is, in some unspecified way, doing these people ‘good’ by the mere fact of drinking their cocktails and laughing at their jokes, and that to cease to do so would be ‘priggish’, ‘intolerant’, and (of course) ‘Puritanical’.
Meanwhile … Her jealousy, and alarm, and his increasing evasiveness or rudeness, will be invaluable for the aggravation of the domestic tension
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
10.4) What does Screwtape mean by saying Wormwood should get the patient to lead “two parallel lives?” What are some of the dangers of trying to do this?
Jesus' words in Matthew 12:22-32
Jesus and Beelzebub
Mt 12:22 Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. 23 All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”
Mt 12:24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”
Mt 12:25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Mt 12:29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.
Mt 12:30 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Vocabulary:
ingrained – I gather that the middle-aged married couple who called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know—rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly sceptical about everything in the world. I gather they are even vaguely pacifist, not on moral grounds but from an ingrained habit of belittling anything that concerns the great mass of their fellow men and from a dash of purely fashionable and literary communism.
ingrained – firmly fixed; deep-rooted;
Related Words: ingrained deep-rooted, deep-seated, implanted, planted
sceptical – I gather that the middle-aged married couple who called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know—rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly sceptical about everything in the world.
sceptical – is the old English way of spelling skeptical, which means not convinced that something is true.
Mammon – In modern Christian writings, though I see much (indeed more than I like) about Mammon, I see few of the old warnings about Worldly Vanities, the Choice of Friends, and the Value of Time.
Mammon is the name of an ancient Deity worshiped by the Sumerians. He is the God of wealth and his name translates as “property”. The Christians began to use the Holy Name of Mammon as a pejorative, a term that was used to describe greed, avarice, and unjust worldly gain in Biblical literature. It was personified as a false god in the New Testament.{Mt.6:24; Lk.16.13} The term is often used to refer to excessive materialism or greed as a negative influence.
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