Reflect — The Sins of the Flesh

Lesson Reading

Read alongside this lesson: Letters 17 and 9, with Letters 18 and 20 in support.

Why these. Letter 17 is the gluttony letter, and Lewis's treatment is unexpected. The patient's mother is enslaved not by gluttony of excess but by gluttony of "Delicacy," the "All-I-want" state of mind, the small fussy demands that produce impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern while she believes she is practicing temperance. Letter 9 explains why the trough periods of dryness are the prime time for "all sensual temptations, particularly those of sex," because the powers of resistance are lowest when the inner world is "drab and cold and empty." Letters 18 and 20 develop lust and the disordering of desire: marriage versus "being in love," the body, and the manufacture of an appetite for what does not exist. Note that Lewis treats sins of the flesh as gateways: gluttony is described as "artillery preparation for attacks on chastity."

Discussion and Reflection Questions

  1. In Letter 17, Screwtape says the mother is enslaved not by gluttony of excess but by gluttony of "Delicacy," the constant small demand that things be exactly to her taste, while she believes she is being moderate. Explain how a fussy, "All-I-want" appetite can rule a person who would never call herself a glutton. Where do you see this pattern, in others or in yourself?

  2. Lewis notes that gluttony produces "querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern." Look at your own appetites, for food, comfort, drink, entertainment, scrolling. Which of those four fruits shows up in you when an appetite is crossed? What does that reveal about its hold on you?

  3. In Letter 9, Screwtape says the dry, empty seasons are the best time for sensual temptation, because that is when our powers of resistance are lowest and the inner world is "drab and cold and empty." When are you most vulnerable to the sins of the flesh? What does it tell you that temptation grows strongest when your soul is emptiest?

  4. Scripture is direct about the body: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). How does "you are not your own" change the way you think about a private bodily sin you assume hurts no one?

  5. Mortification is the Bible's word for the daily killing of sin: "If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Romans 8:13). Lewis shows that gluttony is "artillery preparation" for unchastity, that one disordered appetite opens the way for another. Which appetite, if you put it to death, would weaken several others? Name it.

  6. Lewis insists we are "amphibians," half spirit and half animal, so that "whatever their bodies do affects their souls." What ordinary, physical practice, sleep, food, drink, exercise, what you watch, leaves you most exposed spiritually when it is out of order? What would it look like to bring it under God rather than treat it as a neutral matter?

  7. Application: choose one bodily appetite and name one specific, measurable act of self-denial you will practice this week, not as a diet, but as training in godliness (1 Timothy 4:7-8). What is it, and how will you know you did it?