Thursday, February 18, 2016

Bonhoeffer: We Find Life in the Scriptures


Today's quote from Bonhoeffer, from his book, Life Together:


"It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is 'external to ourselves.' I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, his Cross, and his resurrection, is with God and God with him.
     "...what we call our life, our troubles, our guilt, is by no means all of reality; there in the Scriptures is our life, our need, our guilt, and our salvation. Because it pleased God to act for us there, it is only there that we shall be saved. Only in the Holy Scriptures do we learn to know our own history. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God and Father of Jesus Christ and our Father." Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Prayer


Prayer "means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises."
                         Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Life Together




Sunday, February 14, 2016

Bonhoeffer on Spiritual vs. Human Love


Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, in his book, Life Together:

     "...spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ. It will not seek to move others by all too personal, direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another. It will not take pleasure in pious, human fervor and excitement. It will rather meet the other person with the clear Word of God and be ready to leave him alone with this Word for a long time, willing to release him again in order that Christ may deal with him. It will respect the line that has been drawn between him and us by Christ, and it will find full fellowship with him in the Christ who alone binds us together. Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of others is wholly dependent upon the truth in Christ. It is out of this love that John the disciple speaks. 'I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth' (III John 4).
     Human love lives by uncontrolled and uncontrollable dark desires; spiritual love lives in the clear light of service ordered by the truth. Human love produces human subjection, dependence, constraint; spiritual love creates freedom of the brethren under the Word. Human love breeds hothouse flowers; spiritual love creates the fruits that grow healthily in accord with God's good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God's outdoors. The existence of any Christian life together depends on whether it succeeds at the right time in bringing out the ability to distinguish between a human ideal and God's reality, between spiritual and human community." Dietrich Bonhoeffer 


Saturday, February 13, 2016

In Honor of Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born February 4, 1906. In honor of him, I will be posting some great quotes of his, the first of which appears in the book Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Dallas M. Roark.

"...resistance to the devil is only possible in the fullest submission to the hand of God." Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Monday, February 1, 2016

Frederick Douglass Quote


Today's Google Doodle celebrates Frederick Douglass. Here is a quote attributed to him:

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." 




"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframe of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:5-9

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus..." Philippians 2:1-5, underline and italics mine 

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." 2 Timothy  3:16

"His divine power has given us everything we need for a Godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." 2 Peter 1:3