Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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After his martyrdom at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer continued his witness in the hearts of Christians around the world. His Letters and Papers from Prison became a prized testimony to Christian faith and courage, read by thousands. Now in Life Together there is Pastor Bonhoeffer's experience of Christian community. This story of a unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years reads like one of Paul's letters. It gives practical advice on how life show more together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups. The role of personal prayer, worship in common, everyday work, and Christian service is treated in simple, almost biblical, words. Life Together is bread for all who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship. show lessTags
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Bonhoeffer is simple and genuine as he paints a picture of the fellowship to which God call His children in Christ. His chapters on community, ministry, and confession were particularly good, though there were valuable insights in all. His vision of Christian community as a divine reality created in Jesus in which we are invited to participate was brilliant, as was his point that Jesus stands between every lover and his loves. Bonhoeffer well argued that there is no fellowship nor love outside of Christ. His approach of working up to the obvious ministries (helpfulness, bearing, proclaiming) by first addressing the foundational ministries (holding one’s tongue, meekness, listening) was particularly good, as he secured the heart of show more ministry before working it out. And, I have never heard a better treatment of confession than what Bonhoeffer offers in this book. His frame of “breaking through” (to community, to the cross, to new life, and to certainty) was very helpful, and he placed it between the two extremes that we know to be unworkable – the Roman practice of the confessional and the evangelical practice of ignoring it altogether. For Bonhoeffer, confession is the natural practice of brothers and sisters under the cross who receive the bread and the wine together. show less
Wide is the gap between the “wishful image of pious community” and the church constituted by the great author of faith. So says Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his treatise on Christian community. Because the church is a real thing, it exists within a real context. Spatially, the church exists “in the midst of enemies.” Whether it is the Roman Empire or the Nazi government of Bonhoeffer’s day, the church expects opposition.
Chronologically, the church exists in a unique period of redemptive history. Though it tastes the first fruits, it awaits the final gathering at Christ’s return.
It is at this junction that Christians “find their mission.” Christ designates His church the “bringers of the message of salvation.” The show more evangelistic duty to the world flows from the heart of Christian community. Christian fellowship exists because “Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them.” As the appointed administrators of the Word, Christian community assumes a particular form and structure. It is a “divine reality.”
“Divine reality” characterizes “spiritual reality,” which emanates from the Holy Spirit, while “emotional reality” proceeds from the flesh. The difference between spiritual and emotional reality is twofold. The first distinction is in what binds the community together. Spiritual community attests to the adhesive quality of common faith. The community between two believers “consists solely in what Christ has done to both of [them.]” Two Christians may share many traits, but none compare to their union in Christ. In comparison, competition plagues emotional communities as each member projects his own ideals onto the community. “[T]he visionary ideal binds the people together,” not faith in Christ.
The activity of Christians living together reveals the second difference between spiritual and emotional reality. The manner in which Christians love one another is fundamental since it shapes all other enterprises. Because an emotional community exists only out of the “desire for community” itself, its love is egocentric. Just as Wormwood knew his “ravenously affectionate” Uncle Screwtape, so too does an emotional community only know “the complete intimate fusion of I and You.” It is a consuming love that only asks how others are serving one’s own needs. Love in the spiritual community, however, “comes from Jesus Christ,” and “serves him alone.”
Selfless love extends into all facets of life within the spiritual community. Each activity, though distinct in habit, proceeds from the Word to serve the common good of believers. By praying the Psalms, the church discovers what prayer is and how “to pray as a community.” In prayer, believers unite in the body of Christ and learn true selflessness. Scripture reading draws Christians into a redemptive story. The community “participates” in the stories together and “receives salvation in Jesus Christ.” The stories of God’s redemptive love spur the Christian community into worship. Worship is the “victory song” of the church and reminds God’s people of all that He has done and is still doing for them. Though vocations are often considered in individual terms, they too serve the community. Work, in the hand of God, is an instrument “for purification of Christians from all self-absorption and selfishness.” Work outside the sphere of one’s direct Christian community prepares him for the work inside it. Service to others defines a life spent within Christian community. Believers are always looking for opportunities to serve others in the body through “listening,” “active helpfulness,” and “supporting one another.”
Interestingly, a life of service unveils the paradox of Christian freedom. Bearing the burdens of others within the community frees all that is “human nature, individuality, and talent” to flourish. Ironically, a life of selfless service, born from faith, liberates the believer to become most fully himself. In this way, life within the church follows the ex contrario pattern of God’s grace.
Every community enterprise culminates in the Lord’s Supper. Communion acknowledges spiritual reality and unifies the Christian community across time and space. At the table, the Christian community “has reached its goal” and is “complete.”
The divine reality of the church has real implications for the present moment. Too many in self-appointed positions of authority castigate the actual church against their idealized version of it. They “love their dream of a Christian community” and not the Christian community which exists among them, full of deplorables and others lacking in social and cultural power (10). And no poll or data suggest that is going to change anytime soon. The church in the immediate future projects to be a small remnant, despised and rejected for its audacity to challenge liberal dogmas of life, sexuality, and gender. We will not make it out without friends. The Christian community has been sown together exactly for this purpose. May we join in hope, faith, and love and strengthen the body now for the blows that come in the future. show less
Chronologically, the church exists in a unique period of redemptive history. Though it tastes the first fruits, it awaits the final gathering at Christ’s return.
It is at this junction that Christians “find their mission.” Christ designates His church the “bringers of the message of salvation.” The show more evangelistic duty to the world flows from the heart of Christian community. Christian fellowship exists because “Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them.” As the appointed administrators of the Word, Christian community assumes a particular form and structure. It is a “divine reality.”
“Divine reality” characterizes “spiritual reality,” which emanates from the Holy Spirit, while “emotional reality” proceeds from the flesh. The difference between spiritual and emotional reality is twofold. The first distinction is in what binds the community together. Spiritual community attests to the adhesive quality of common faith. The community between two believers “consists solely in what Christ has done to both of [them.]” Two Christians may share many traits, but none compare to their union in Christ. In comparison, competition plagues emotional communities as each member projects his own ideals onto the community. “[T]he visionary ideal binds the people together,” not faith in Christ.
The activity of Christians living together reveals the second difference between spiritual and emotional reality. The manner in which Christians love one another is fundamental since it shapes all other enterprises. Because an emotional community exists only out of the “desire for community” itself, its love is egocentric. Just as Wormwood knew his “ravenously affectionate” Uncle Screwtape, so too does an emotional community only know “the complete intimate fusion of I and You.” It is a consuming love that only asks how others are serving one’s own needs. Love in the spiritual community, however, “comes from Jesus Christ,” and “serves him alone.”
Selfless love extends into all facets of life within the spiritual community. Each activity, though distinct in habit, proceeds from the Word to serve the common good of believers. By praying the Psalms, the church discovers what prayer is and how “to pray as a community.” In prayer, believers unite in the body of Christ and learn true selflessness. Scripture reading draws Christians into a redemptive story. The community “participates” in the stories together and “receives salvation in Jesus Christ.” The stories of God’s redemptive love spur the Christian community into worship. Worship is the “victory song” of the church and reminds God’s people of all that He has done and is still doing for them. Though vocations are often considered in individual terms, they too serve the community. Work, in the hand of God, is an instrument “for purification of Christians from all self-absorption and selfishness.” Work outside the sphere of one’s direct Christian community prepares him for the work inside it. Service to others defines a life spent within Christian community. Believers are always looking for opportunities to serve others in the body through “listening,” “active helpfulness,” and “supporting one another.”
Interestingly, a life of service unveils the paradox of Christian freedom. Bearing the burdens of others within the community frees all that is “human nature, individuality, and talent” to flourish. Ironically, a life of selfless service, born from faith, liberates the believer to become most fully himself. In this way, life within the church follows the ex contrario pattern of God’s grace.
Every community enterprise culminates in the Lord’s Supper. Communion acknowledges spiritual reality and unifies the Christian community across time and space. At the table, the Christian community “has reached its goal” and is “complete.”
The divine reality of the church has real implications for the present moment. Too many in self-appointed positions of authority castigate the actual church against their idealized version of it. They “love their dream of a Christian community” and not the Christian community which exists among them, full of deplorables and others lacking in social and cultural power (10). And no poll or data suggest that is going to change anytime soon. The church in the immediate future projects to be a small remnant, despised and rejected for its audacity to challenge liberal dogmas of life, sexuality, and gender. We will not make it out without friends. The Christian community has been sown together exactly for this purpose. May we join in hope, faith, and love and strengthen the body now for the blows that come in the future. show less
Preferring the other
Bearing one another’s burdens
It’s all about love
Great chapter on looking at your own sin as worse than others. Not judging others.
The chapter on confession is worth the price of the book alone.
He asks “why do we find it harder to go to another person, who is also sinful, and confess sin as opposed to a holy God. Surely it should be the other way around” he goes on to answer that perhaps we often instead of God been confessing our sins to our selves and granting absolution.
Showing weakness and confessing sins he says that after all our community and service we will be alone “though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as show more sinners” there is an analogy with the guy who says to be ok being stupid. You have to be ok being a sinner.
Sin wants to remain unknown
I dare you to be a sinner. I dare you to be the sinner you are. Confess who you are!
I don’t think many writers have had the grasp and been able to articulate the core problem of sin and grace like Bonhoeffer. He finishes beautifully on communion. show less
Bearing one another’s burdens
It’s all about love
Great chapter on looking at your own sin as worse than others. Not judging others.
The chapter on confession is worth the price of the book alone.
He asks “why do we find it harder to go to another person, who is also sinful, and confess sin as opposed to a holy God. Surely it should be the other way around” he goes on to answer that perhaps we often instead of God been confessing our sins to our selves and granting absolution.
Showing weakness and confessing sins he says that after all our community and service we will be alone “though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as show more sinners” there is an analogy with the guy who says to be ok being stupid. You have to be ok being a sinner.
Sin wants to remain unknown
I dare you to be a sinner. I dare you to be the sinner you are. Confess who you are!
I don’t think many writers have had the grasp and been able to articulate the core problem of sin and grace like Bonhoeffer. He finishes beautifully on communion. show less
I have wanted to read this book for some time, but was left a bit disappointed. There were definitely things of good, which cannot be discounted. But all in all, the book wasn’t quite what I was expecting on the topic.
First, the good:
1. I appreciated the balance and excellent of the sections on solitude and silence when so many warn us to avoid silence:
“There is an indifferent, or even negative, attitude toward silence which sees in it a disparagement of God's revelation in the Word. This is the view which misinterprets silence is a ceremonial gesture, as a mystical desire to get beyond the Word. This is to miss the essential relationship of silence to the Word. Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of show more God. We are silent before hearing the Word because our thoughts are already directed to the Word, as a child is quiet when he enters his father's room. We are silent after hearing the Word because the Word is still speaking and dwelling within us.”
2. “It will happen again and again that the person who is charged with offering the prayer for the fellowship will not feel at all in the spiritual mood to do so, and will much prefer to turn over his task to another for this day. Such a shift is not advisable, however. Otherwise, the prayer of the fellowship will too easily be governed by moods which have nothing to do with spiritual life. It is precisely when a person, who is borne down by inner emptiness and weariness or a sense of personal unworthiness, feels that he would like to withdraw from his task, that he should learn what it means to have a duty to perform in the fellowship, and the brethren should support him in his weakness, in his inability to pray.”
3. This quote on personal intercession for another:
“I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. . . There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned.”
4. The mention that psalms we ourselves cannot pray, “hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we. . . none other than Jesus Christ Himself.”
The not so good: The writing is rather dry a lot of the time and not much citing of Scripture is given for his ideas.
It was concerning that he did not mention the importance of knowing the proper context of a Scripture passage when meditating on the Word, instead encouraging the individual to ponder what it personally says to us and for our own life. This isn’t inherently bad, but we need to be careful not to misinterpret a Scripture in wrong or harmful ways because we do not know its context. For example, it could lead someone to read into God calling Abraham to another location as God telling us to move if someone did not know the full narrative of the Bible as a whole.
Secondly, I cannot agree where he says there should only be unison/melody only singing in worship.
As a minister of music and someone who has studied music history, it’s important to remember how Bach and Handel composed their choral works intentionally to the glory of God, such as Handel’s Messiah complete with full harmonies telling of Christ. Music in worship can be through a musical presentation of truth such as they and others of their era composed.
Furthermore, unity of fellowship does not require us to completely set aside harmony voices in our musical worship to God. Some singers will not be able to sing every song (whether hymn or composed recently) in the range it is in, even as we seek to choose a singable key for most. This would hinder from singing those who might otherwise be able to sing by adding harmony.
This also well illustrates how God gives differing gifts and ministries but of His same Spirit to those in the Body of Christ.
Of course, I agree that singers seeking to promote themselves or show off their abilities are a hindrance to unity; however, harmonies can work together in a way that adds to the unity of the church in musical worship and helps support those without musical training as the Body sings praises to God in one voice when musicians have a heart to honor the Lord. Likewise, “one voice” does not mean only melody as referring to singing, but of being like-hearted and having one mind as Paul wrote in Philippians 2.
By the end, however, I was thankful I didn’t stop short in reading this book. Despite the writing style and things mentioned above, there were good points and helpful sections. show less
First, the good:
1. I appreciated the balance and excellent of the sections on solitude and silence when so many warn us to avoid silence:
“There is an indifferent, or even negative, attitude toward silence which sees in it a disparagement of God's revelation in the Word. This is the view which misinterprets silence is a ceremonial gesture, as a mystical desire to get beyond the Word. This is to miss the essential relationship of silence to the Word. Silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the Word of show more God. We are silent before hearing the Word because our thoughts are already directed to the Word, as a child is quiet when he enters his father's room. We are silent after hearing the Word because the Word is still speaking and dwelling within us.”
2. “It will happen again and again that the person who is charged with offering the prayer for the fellowship will not feel at all in the spiritual mood to do so, and will much prefer to turn over his task to another for this day. Such a shift is not advisable, however. Otherwise, the prayer of the fellowship will too easily be governed by moods which have nothing to do with spiritual life. It is precisely when a person, who is borne down by inner emptiness and weariness or a sense of personal unworthiness, feels that he would like to withdraw from his task, that he should learn what it means to have a duty to perform in the fellowship, and the brethren should support him in his weakness, in his inability to pray.”
3. This quote on personal intercession for another:
“I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. . . There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned.”
4. The mention that psalms we ourselves cannot pray, “hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we. . . none other than Jesus Christ Himself.”
The not so good: The writing is rather dry a lot of the time and not much citing of Scripture is given for his ideas.
It was concerning that he did not mention the importance of knowing the proper context of a Scripture passage when meditating on the Word, instead encouraging the individual to ponder what it personally says to us and for our own life. This isn’t inherently bad, but we need to be careful not to misinterpret a Scripture in wrong or harmful ways because we do not know its context. For example, it could lead someone to read into God calling Abraham to another location as God telling us to move if someone did not know the full narrative of the Bible as a whole.
Secondly, I cannot agree where he says there should only be unison/melody only singing in worship.
As a minister of music and someone who has studied music history, it’s important to remember how Bach and Handel composed their choral works intentionally to the glory of God, such as Handel’s Messiah complete with full harmonies telling of Christ. Music in worship can be through a musical presentation of truth such as they and others of their era composed.
Furthermore, unity of fellowship does not require us to completely set aside harmony voices in our musical worship to God. Some singers will not be able to sing every song (whether hymn or composed recently) in the range it is in, even as we seek to choose a singable key for most. This would hinder from singing those who might otherwise be able to sing by adding harmony.
This also well illustrates how God gives differing gifts and ministries but of His same Spirit to those in the Body of Christ.
Of course, I agree that singers seeking to promote themselves or show off their abilities are a hindrance to unity; however, harmonies can work together in a way that adds to the unity of the church in musical worship and helps support those without musical training as the Body sings praises to God in one voice when musicians have a heart to honor the Lord. Likewise, “one voice” does not mean only melody as referring to singing, but of being like-hearted and having one mind as Paul wrote in Philippians 2.
By the end, however, I was thankful I didn’t stop short in reading this book. Despite the writing style and things mentioned above, there were good points and helpful sections. show less
This is a six-star book. Heck, call it eleven stars. Absolutely classic.
Life Together was young Dietrich Bonhoeffer's manifesto about the Christian community, written as he was leading an underground seminary for the confessing church under Nazi German rule. The members of the seminary knew that they would be executed if they were found; Bonhoeffer was martyred in the process.
Still, the book deals with the everyday nature of conflict and falling short between one person and another; it drives us into deeper relationship and forgiveness and community.
I'll teach from this book in academic and lay coursework around spiritual formation in communities and networks. It's a bit Lutheran and liturgical in some spots for some readers, but it's show more overwhelmingly powerful throughout. show less
Life Together was young Dietrich Bonhoeffer's manifesto about the Christian community, written as he was leading an underground seminary for the confessing church under Nazi German rule. The members of the seminary knew that they would be executed if they were found; Bonhoeffer was martyred in the process.
Still, the book deals with the everyday nature of conflict and falling short between one person and another; it drives us into deeper relationship and forgiveness and community.
I'll teach from this book in academic and lay coursework around spiritual formation in communities and networks. It's a bit Lutheran and liturgical in some spots for some readers, but it's show more overwhelmingly powerful throughout. show less
This is a six-star book. Heck, call it eleven stars. Absolutely classic.
Life Together was young Dietrich Bonhoeffer's manifesto about the Christian community, written as he was leading an underground seminary for the confessing church under Nazi German rule. The members of the seminary knew that they would be executed if they were found; Bonhoeffer was martyred in the process.
Still, the book deals with the everyday nature of conflict and falling short between one person and another; it drives us into deeper relationship and forgiveness and community.
I'll teach from this book in academic and lay coursework around spiritual formation in communities and networks. It's a bit Lutheran and liturgical in some spots for some readers, but it's show more overwhelmingly powerful throughout. show less
Life Together was young Dietrich Bonhoeffer's manifesto about the Christian community, written as he was leading an underground seminary for the confessing church under Nazi German rule. The members of the seminary knew that they would be executed if they were found; Bonhoeffer was martyred in the process.
Still, the book deals with the everyday nature of conflict and falling short between one person and another; it drives us into deeper relationship and forgiveness and community.
I'll teach from this book in academic and lay coursework around spiritual formation in communities and networks. It's a bit Lutheran and liturgical in some spots for some readers, but it's show more overwhelmingly powerful throughout. show less
"Reading Bonhoeffer is incredibly convicting." That was my friend's opinion when I mentioned this book, and he is absolutely right.
Bonhoeffer was the German pastor convicted, imprisoned, and executed for speaking out against Hitler and eventually scheming to assassinate him. As with his opposition to Fascism, Bonhoeffer lived out each one of his beliefs. That biographical tidbit makes every one of his books more amazing; his strong rhetoric is not simply hopeful. Bonhoeffer walked the talk.
In this book, Bonhoeffer explored the role of Christian community, which he imagines as a small, familial fellowship of believers. Christians, in Bonhoeffer's world, meet together morning and night, before and after their workdays. For that reason, show more Life Together includes strong opinions about how a community should do daily reading and prayer. Modern Christians may be put off by the depth of involvement Bonhoeffer expects from them, particularly in the chapter entitled "The Day with Others."
The other chapters are devoted to the nature of Christian community, the need for silence and solitude, the role of ministry in community, and the need for confession and communion. Bonhoeffer's praise of solitude echoes Blaise Pascal, when he writes:
"Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are driven to seek the company of other people. ... The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual this diversion may appear."
I commend this book to you, because it will challenge you to invest more time, energy, and prayer in your local Christian community. Bonhoeffer elevates Christ in all things, and he illustrates beautifully the role individual Christians play in proclaiming Christ. It will encourage you to pursue life together. show less
Bonhoeffer was the German pastor convicted, imprisoned, and executed for speaking out against Hitler and eventually scheming to assassinate him. As with his opposition to Fascism, Bonhoeffer lived out each one of his beliefs. That biographical tidbit makes every one of his books more amazing; his strong rhetoric is not simply hopeful. Bonhoeffer walked the talk.
In this book, Bonhoeffer explored the role of Christian community, which he imagines as a small, familial fellowship of believers. Christians, in Bonhoeffer's world, meet together morning and night, before and after their workdays. For that reason, show more Life Together includes strong opinions about how a community should do daily reading and prayer. Modern Christians may be put off by the depth of involvement Bonhoeffer expects from them, particularly in the chapter entitled "The Day with Others."
The other chapters are devoted to the nature of Christian community, the need for silence and solitude, the role of ministry in community, and the need for confession and communion. Bonhoeffer's praise of solitude echoes Blaise Pascal, when he writes:
"Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are driven to seek the company of other people. ... The person who comes into a fellowship because he is running away from himself is misusing it for the sake of diversion, no matter how spiritual this diversion may appear."
I commend this book to you, because it will challenge you to invest more time, energy, and prayer in your local Christian community. Bonhoeffer elevates Christ in all things, and he illustrates beautifully the role individual Christians play in proclaiming Christ. It will encourage you to pursue life together. show less
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ThingScore 75
Rich in suggestions for the cultivation of spiritual life.
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Thought-provoking....Breathes of real humility, love for the saints, and faith.
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Makes most contemporary Christian practice seem pale and thin.
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Born in 1906 in Breslau, Germany, now part of Poland, Dietrich Bonhoeffer became a radical theologian. He was raised in a home where the intellect was honored. His father was a physician and professor of psychiatry at the University of Berlin. Such scholars as the church historian Adolph von Harnack, the theologian and sociohistorian Ernst show more Troeltsch, and Max Weber, a founder of modern sociology, were frequent guests of the Bonhoeffers. A precocious student who evidenced a degree of independence of thought that was at odds with the reverence in which his fellow students held their professors, Bonhoeffer decided early on the church and theology as his life's work. He was a product of liberal studies that were greatly influenced by Karl Barth. Bonhoeffer's doctoral dissertation, Sanctorum Communio: A Dogmatic Investigation of the Sociology of the Church, was published in 1930, at the time he was teaching theology at the University of Berlin. A year's study in the United States followed and leadership of the World Alliance of Churches, where his flair for languages and his genial disposition won him many friends. His American and British friends tried unsuccessfully to dissuade him from returning to Germany after the rise of Hitler in 1932. But Bonhoeffer returned, and joining the so-called Confessing Church of those who resisted Germanizing the church, he conducted an illegal seminary in Finkenwalde. Out of this experience came his Life Together; out of his struggles to encourage Christians to resist the Nazis came The Cost of Discipleship, his study of the Sermon on the Mount. Although Bonhoeffer escaped military duty by joining the intelligence service, he was eventually arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo and was linked to the attempt on Hitler's life. His Letters and Papers from Prison (translated in 1953), was his testimony of faith; the writing gave the American death of God movement the term religionless Christianity. Bonhoeffer was killed in 1945 while he was in prison in Flossenburg. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
- Original title
- Gemeinsames Leben
- Alternate titles
- Life together : the classic exploration of faith in community; Life together: a discussion of Christian fellowship; 團契生活. English
- Original publication date
- 1938
- First words
- Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! (Ps. 133:1)
- Quotations
- 'Not,' as his friend Bethge says, 'that he believed that everybody must act as he did, but from where he was standing, he could see no possibility of retreat into any sinless, righteous, pious refuge. The sin of respectable p... (show all)eople reveals itself in flight from responsibility. He saw that sin falling upon him and he took his stand.' (11)
"Such was the life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a teacher of the Church in the highest sense of the word, a writer of profound theological and Biblical insight and yet close to the contemporary life and sensitive to rea... (show all)lity, a witness who saw the way of discipleship and walked it to the end." (18)
"'I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries' (Zech. 10:9). According to God's will Christendom is a scattered people, scattered like seed 'into all the kingdoms of the earth' (Deut. 28:25).... (show all) That is its curse and its promise. God's people must dwell in far countries among the unbelievers, but it will be the seed of the Kingdom of God in all the world." (18)
WC: "Seminarians before their ordination receive the gift of common life with their brethren for a definite period." (21)
"He knows that God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at... (show all) all. The Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God's claims and God's justification. He lives wholly by God's word pronounced upon him, whether that Word declares him guilty or innocent." (22)
"The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God's Word to him....They [the Reformers] were saying that the Chri... (show all)stian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him. The Christian lives wholly by the truth of God's Word in Jesus Christ, - Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Das gemeinsame Leben der Christen unter dem Wort ist im Sakrament zu seiner Erfüllung gekommen.
- Original language*
- Deutsch
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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