August 29, 2009 • 9:02 am 0
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has long been one of my favorites. Scot McKnight shares his view on Life Together and includes some quotes from the book that are worth remembering. I’d say that Life Together should be required reading for all 21st Century Christians.
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, McKnight
May 31, 2009 • 6:24 pm 3
The news about Dr. George Tiller today makes the recent quotes from Miroslav Volf and this one from Bonhoeffer especially timely and relevant. At times like this I am reminded of Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
“The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match.”
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
HT: RustinSmyth
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, from the profane to the sublime , Bonhoeffer, Miroslav Volf
October 12, 2008 • 8:24 pm 0
Evangelism, rightly understood, is the proclamation of the Gospel or “good news” of Jesus Christ. The Gospel, rightly proclaimed, is the announcement that Jesus is the Lord over all creation, the entire Cosmos, and even death itself. This “good news” has the result, for those who receive it, of entrance into God’s family, participation in his Kingdom, and forgiveness of sin. This is known as salvation. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, books , Bonhoeffer, Life Together
September 4, 2008 • 11:19 pm 2
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, from the sublime to the profane , Bonhoeffer, Life Together
August 25, 2008 • 8:32 pm 0
By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. … Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in Gods sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and a to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. … He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. - Life Together, pg. 28
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, books , Bonhoeffer, Life Together
August 19, 2008 • 10:42 pm 6
I have been thinking a lot about freedom lately and how much we want to take it away from one another. Anytime we restrict the freedom of another it is always for their own good. Perhaps we love another, as God would have us. when we can release the one we wish to control on their own recognizance.
Bonhoeffer talks about this:
Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ’s sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person, it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule. - Life Together, pg. 34
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, books , Bonhoeffer, Life Together
August 17, 2008 • 9:47 pm 2
Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
What does this mean? It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pg. 21
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, books , Bonhoeffer, Life Together
August 12, 2008 • 7:51 pm 2
I have recently started re-reading Bonhoeffer’s little book Life Together with a few friends. This book was the result of the time Bonhoeffer spent with a group of renegade pastors meeting in a secret seminary during WWII. As members of what was called the “Confessing Church” they shared their lives in prayer, study and work for the sake of being faithful witnesses to Christ in Nazi Germany.
I hadn’t thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a missional thinker per se but his opening comments about the Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Bonhoeffer, books, missional, people , Bonhoeffer, missional
What You’re Saying