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C. S. Lewis On Clear Writing (And Better Preaching)
By Ray Hollenbach on Feb 2, 2026
C. S. Lewis’s advice on clear writing offers pastors a timeless guide for preaching that is precise, concrete, and spiritually effective.
C. S. Lewis on Clear Writing (and Better Preaching)
Good preaching depends on clear language. In a short letter to a young reader, C. S. Lewis outlined principles of writing that translate directly into faithful, effective preaching. Clarity honors both the truth of the gospel and the people who hear it. He once wrote to an American boy with advice on clear writing.
It turns out to be excellent advice for pastors on preaching as well:
1. Always try to use the language to make it quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence doesn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the clean, direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died,” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing, don’t use adjectives that merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please, will you do my job for me.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise, you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
(From: Letters to Children, Dorsett & Mead, editors, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1985)
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