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Friday, February 23, 2018

Fundamentally eliminating simple obedience introduces a principle of Scripture foreign to the gospel. According to it, in order to understand Scripture, one first must have a key to interpreting it. But that key would not be the living Christ himself in judgment and grace, and using the key would not be according to the will of the living Holy Spirit alone. Rather, the key to Scripture would be a general doctrine of grace, and we ourselves would decide its use. The problem of following Christ shows  itself to be a hermeneutical (biblical interpretation) problem. But it should be clear to a gospel-oriented hermeneutic that we cannot simply identify ourselves directly with those called by Jesus. Instead, those who are called in Scripture themselves belong to the word of God and thus to the proclamation of the word…. Simple obedience would be misunderstood hermeneutically if we were to act and follow as if we were contemporaries of the biblical disciples. But the Christ proclaimed to us in Scripture is, through every word he says, the one whose gift of faith is granted only to the obedient, faith to the obedient alone. We cannot and may not go behind the word of Scripture to the actual events. Instead, we are called to follow Christ by the entire word of Scripture, simply because we do not intend to wish to violate Scripture by legalistically applying a principle to it, even that of a doctrine of faith.

-from The Cost of Discipleship, pg. 82

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Jesus says to anyone who uses their faith or lack of faith to excuse their acts of disobedience to his call: “First obey, do the external works, let go of what binds you, give up what is separating you from God’s will!” Do not say, “I do not have the faith for that.” You will not have it so long as you remain disobedient, so long as you will not take that first step. Do not say, “I have faith, so I do not have to take the first step.” You do not have faith, because and so long as you will not take that first step. Instead, you have hardened yourself in disbelief under the appearance of humble faith. It is an evil excuse to point from inadequate obedience to inadequate faith, and from inadequate faith to inadequate obedience. It is the disobedience of the “faithful” if they confess their unbelief where their obedience is required and if they play games with that confession (Mark 9:24). You believe–so take the first step! It leads to Jesus Christ. You do not believe–take the same step; it is commanded of you! The question of your belief or unbelief is not yours to ask. The works of obedience are required and must be done immediately. The situation is given in which faith becomes possible and really exists.

-from The Cost of Discipleship, pgs. 66-67

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

No one should be surprised that they cannot come to believe so long as, in deliberate disobedience, they flee or reject some aspect of Jesus’s commandment. You do not want to subject some sinful passion, an enmity, a hope, your life plans, or your reason to Jesus’s commandment? Do not be surprised that you do not receive the Holy Spirit, that you cannot pray, that your prayer for faith remains empty! Instead, go and be reconciled with your sister or brother; let go of the sin which keeps you captive; and you will be able to believe again! If you reject God’s commanding word, you will not receive God’s gracious word. How would you expect to find community while you intentionally withdraw from it at some point? The disobedient cannot believe; only the obedient believe.

-from The Cost of Discipleship, pg. 66

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

If we ourselves understand our first step as a precondition for grace, for faith, then we are judged by our works and completely cut off from grace…. It is but a new possibility for living within our old existence and thereby a complete misunderstanding. We remain in unbelief. But the external works have to take place; we have to get into the situation of being able to believe. We have to take the step. What does that mean? It means that we take this step in the right way only when we do not look to the necessity of our works, but solely with a view to the word of Jesus Christ, which calls us to take the step. Peter knows that he cannot climb out of the boat by his own power. His first step would already be his downfall, so he calls, “Command me to come to you on the water.” Christ answers, “Come.” Christ has to have called; the step can be taken only at his word. This call to his grace, which calls us out of death into the new life of obedience…. So it is, indeed, the case that the first step of obedience is itself an act of faith in Christ’s word.

-from The Cost of Discipleship, pgs. 65-66

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Monday, February 19, 2018

There is a great danger in telling the difference between a situation where faith is possible and where it is not. It is clear that there is nothing in the situation as such to indicate which kind it is. Only the call of Jesus Christ qualifies it as a situation where faith is possible. Second, a situation where faith is possible is never made by humans. Discipleship is not a human offer. The call alone creates the situation. Third, the value of the situation is never in itself. The call alone justifies it. Finally and most of all, the situation which enables faith can itself happen only in faith. The concept of a situation in which faith is possible is only a description of the reality contained in the following two statements, both of which are equally true: only the believers obey, and only the obedient believe. 

-from The Cost of Discipleship, pg. 63

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

First Sunday in Lent, February 18, 2018

Following Christ means taking certain steps. The first step, which responds to the call, separates the followers from their previous existence. A call to discipleship thus immediately creates a new situation. Staying in the old situation and following Christ mutually exclude each other. At first, that was quite visibly the case. The tax collector had to leave his booth and Peter his nets to follow Jesus. According to our understanding, even back then things could have been quite different. Jesus could have given the tax collector new knowledge of God and left him in his old situation. If Jesus had not been God’s Son become human, then that would have been possible. But because Jesus is the Christ, it has to be made clear from the beginning that his word is not a doctrine. Instead, it creates existence anew. The point was to really walk with Jesus. It was made clear to those he called that they only had one possibility of believing in Jesus, that of leaving everything and going with the incarnate Son of God.

-from The Cost of Discipleship, pgs. 61-62

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Friday, February 16, 2018

Daily, quiet attention to the Word of God which is meant for me, even if it is only for a few minutes, will become for me the focal point of everything which brings inward and outward order into my life. In the interruption and fragmentation of our previous ordered life which this time brings with it, in the danger of losing inner discipline through the host of events, the incessant claims of work and service, through doubt and temptation, struggle and disquiet of all kinds, meditation gives our life something like constancy, it keeps the link with our previous life, from baptism to confirmation, to ordination. It keep us in the saving fellowship of the community, the brethren, our spiritual home. It is a spark from that hearth which the communities want to keep at home for you. It is a source of peace, of patience, and of joy; it is like a magnet which attracts all the resources of discipline to its poles; it is like a pure, deep water in which the heaven, with its clouds and its sun, is clearly reflected; but it also serves the Highest in showing us a place of discipline and of quietness, of saving order and peace. Have we not all a desire for such a gift, unacknowledged perhaps, but still profound? Could it not again be a healing power for us, leading to recovery?

-from A Testament to Freedom, pg. 457

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Thursday, February 15, 2018

One is a brother or sister to another only through Jesus Christ. I am a brother or sister to another person through what Jesus Christ has done for me and to me; others have become brothers and sisters to me through what Jesus Christ has done for them and to them. The fact that we are brothers and sisters only through Jesus Christ is of immeasurable significance. Therefore, the other who comes face to face with me earnestly and devoutly seeking community is not the brother or sister with whom I am to relate in the community. My brother or sister is instead that other person who has been redeemed by Christ, absolved from sin, and called to faith and eternal life. What persons are in themselves as Christians, in their inwardness and piety, cannot constitute the basis of our community, which is determined by what those persons are in terms of Christ. Our community consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. That not only is true at the beginning, as if in the course of time something else were to be added to our community, but also remains so for all the future and into all eternity…. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more everything else between us will recede, and the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is alive between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we really do have one another. We have one another completely and for all eternity.

-from Life Together, pg. 34

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)

Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2018

God wants us to love God eternally with our whole hearts–not in such a way as to injure or weaken our earthly love, but to provide a kind of cantus firmus (firm melody) to which the other melodies of life provide the counterpoint. One of these contrapuntal themes (which have their own complete independence but are yet related to the cantus firmus) is earthly affection. Even in the Bible we have the Song of Songs; and really one can imagine no more ardent, passionate, sensual love than is portrayed there. It is a good thing that that book is in the Bible, in face of all those who believe that the restraint of passion is Christian (where is there such restraint in the Old Testament?). Where the cantus firmus is clear and plain, the counterpoint can be developed to its limits. The two are “undivided yet distinct,” in the words of the Chalcedonian Definition, like Christ in his divine and human natures…. Do you see what I am driving at? I wanted to tell you to have a good, clear cantus firmus; that is the only way to a full and perfect sound, when the counterpoint has a firm support and cannot come adrift or get out of tune, while remaining a distinct whole in its own right. Only a polyphony of this kind can give life a wholeness and at the same time assure us that nothing calamitous can happen as long as the cantus firmus is kept going.

-from Letters and Papers from Prison, pgs. 150-151

(These reflections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer can be found in a collection entitled A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Daily Meditations from His Letters, Writings, and Sermons. It can be purchased HERE.)