bonhoefferblog

Dietrich Bonhoeffer certainly did not beat around the bush when it came to cheapening the gospel:

Grace as the data for our calculations means grace at the cheapest price, but grace as the answer to the sum means costly grace. It is terrifying to realize what use can be made of genuine in evangelical doctrine. In both cases, we have the identical formula-”justification by faith alone.” Yet the misuse of the formula leads to the complete destruction of its very essence (The Cost of Discipleship, 51).

Thus, we say and even cherish the fact that we are justified by faith, and yet we “cheapen” and even destroy that precious truth through a compromising faith.                   

Sometimes, we can convince ourselves that following Jesus really only means a small sacrifice each week in order to satisfy the demands of Jesus. This is known as “cheap grace.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that that the “upshot” of “Cheap grace” is “that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are forgiven. I need to longer follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that” (Life of Discipleship, 51).

Of course, costly grace means (in sharp contrast to cheap grace) that following Jesus is 24/7.

           Perhaps the two most popular works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer among evangelical Christians are Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship. In the coming days, I am going to take a look at The Cost of Discipleship. As always, I would greatly appreciate any feedback or comments. Thank you.

Bonhoeffer’s chief concern in the The Cost of Discipleship is that “grace…has become so watered down that it no longer resembles the grace of the New Testament, the costly grace of the Gospels.”[1] Bonhoeffer called this a “cheap grace”[2] and it had “been the ruin of more Christians than any other commandment of works.”[3] Bonhoeffer defined “cheap grace” as:

…the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[4]

“Cheap Grace” is in sharp contrast to “Costly grace”. Bonhoeffer defined this as:

…is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.[5]

Happy Mother’s Day!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together has influenced Christians and the church for decades. Today when I Googled “Life Together Bonhoeffer” there were around 270,000 web pages including a very good review of Life Together by Tim McIntosh…

Tim McIntosh’s review of Life Together

Quizzical looks usually greet me when I tell people I live in a “Christian community.”

“Oh, like a hippie commune?” some wonder. Or, more bluntly: “You mean, a cult?”

The reactions shouldn’t surprise me. Bizarre religious communities have made headlines in the last several years, some for drinking Clorox, others for stockpiling weapons, others for seeking UFOs.

Our community has no charismatic leader, no semiautomatic rifles, and no silk purple triangles. We live on a farm near a river in North Georgia, praying, working and sharing meals together. Our community is very ordinary.

Note that I said ordinary, not boring. For anyone who has lived in a deliberate Christian community knows that life together is never boring. In addition to sharing meals we also share each other’s needs, idiosyncrasies and moods. Community life is a lot like family life, but stripped of the kinship of common blood and history.

Bonhoeffer’s Life Together

Last week, rummaging through an old box of books, I found a small dusty copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. I was familiar with his famous The Cost of Discipleship, but had never read the little book that grew from his experience in a Christian community. Having been immersed in community life for two years, I was curious to hear what this giant of the faith — ultimately martyred for opposing Hitler — had to say about life together.

Many people know at least the outlines of Bonhoeffer’s life. He showed a strong faith from an early age and, in his teens, began to study theology. He completed his doctorate at age 21 and spent his next years as a preacher, pastor, churchman, and teacher in his native Germany. But all these activities were cut short in the fall of 1933 when Hitler came to power. In protest, Bonhoeffer moved to London but soon returned to his country at the request of the Confessing Church (a body of Christians who firmly opposed the Nazi-influenced church) to run a hidden seminary in Finkenwalde.

Life Together emerged from Bonhoeffer’s experience directing the secret seminary.

Click to read the rest of the review

This blog on the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is almost three months old. The very first entry was on February 19, 2008. This site will help me complete my thesis-project in the pursuit of a Doctor of Ministry degree through Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA.

The purpose of this site is to explain the impact that Bonhoeffer can have on twenty-first century preaching and preachers.

On the top of this page are links to each of the six impacts. Thank you to all those who have taken the time to read them. Thank you also to those who have responded with feedback.

I can still use more feedback. This is crucial to help me complete my thesis-project. So if you are a regular to this site or are new, thank you for being here. If you have the time, please click the “Evaluation Form” at the top of the page and fill it out.

Again, thank you.

Bryan

In the classic book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes that times of fellowship are crucial because we are instruments of God to encourage others (and be encouraged by others) with His Word:

When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him.

He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ.

The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure (22-23).

This is mores than listening to a sermon or sitting in a Bible study. This means that in our gatherings, the Holy Spirit may use us to encourage or gently rebuke another follower of Jesus; or we may be encouraged or rebuked by another. Bonhoeffer also implies humility on our part because our brother or sister in Jesus may have a Word from the Lord that we desperately need to hear.

To Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian fellowship is a gift from God. He writes in Life Together that:

Communal life is again recognized by Christians today as the grace that it is, as the extraordinary, the “roses and lilies” of the Christian life (19). Do we see times together with our brothers and sisters in Jesus as “extraordinary” moments in our Christian experience? Bonhoeffer also points out that our Christian fellowship is only possible through Jesus Christ…

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 daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ (19).

Bonhoeffer explains further…

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 (21).

Thus, each time we are in the presence of other Christians, we have have the opportunity to thank God for his gift of fellowship.

Yesterday was the Lord’s Day and many of us worshiped in our church. When we praise the Lord on Sundays, there should be joy in our hearts because we are in the presence of God.

There is another source of joy as well–it is the joy of being with our brothers and sisters in Jesus. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of this joy in his book, Life Together…

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer. Longingly, the imprisoned apostle Paul calls his “dearly beloved son in the faith,” Timothy to come to him in prison in the last days of his life; he would see him again and have him near. Paul has not forgotten the tears Timothy shed when they last parted (2 Timothy 1:4)…

The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians (19).

Wow! Do we actually “yearn” to be together as Christians?

As Christ-followers, we have been created for fellowship with God through Jesus Christ; and for fellowship with one another in the life of the church.

Bonhoeffer’s message is just as relevant today as it was in the 1930’s.

Do we look forward is being with our brothers and sisters in Jesus?

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, Life Together, he writes that “so between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians” (18).

Since we look forward to spending eternity with one another, it is actually a privilege to fellowship together as God’s people.

Today, I want to continue the thought of Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson in their work, The Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer about the reason Bonhoeffer wrote the classic book, Life Together…

Bonhoeffer also acknowledged the urgent need for the church to discover new and different ways to be the church. He thus emphasized the courageous following of Jesus Christ within a genuine community formed along the lines of the gospel, not the typical kind of church gatherings where strangers met and remain strangers, and whose dull blandness offered little resistance to the political ideology that had successfully gained the allegiance of most churchgoers.

In Bonhoeffer’s spirituality, effective moral leadership and one’s personality strengths are supported in and through the sharing of convictions that takes place in genuine Christian communities where the teachings of Jesus Christ, not political ideology, should inspire believers (146).

Life Together still has much to say to the church in the twenty-first century.

What is the current condition of the church or small group of Christians we are part of? It it centered around the person and teachings of Jesus Christ?

Does our “Life Together” cause spiritual growth and Christ likeness among our brothers and sisters in Jesus?