You are currently browsing the daily archive for July 3rd, 2008.
I am back! I was in a cabin on Upper Turtle Lake (See Picture) in Wisconsin with my family for a few days. Thus, I had no internet connection. It was great day of spiritual and physical refreshment. The jet skiing was fantastic.
Let us continue our look at Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s solution to our tendency in the church to control others. So far we have looked at “The Ministry of Holding One’s Tongue” and “The Ministry of Meekness”.
Bonhoeffer goes from meekness to “The Ministry of Listening.” We Americans are not very good at this because we get anxious to share our own thoughts and opinions sometimes before a person is even finished speaking. Bonhoeffer writes…
The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.
Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking (Life Together, 97)
These are powerful and practical words for the twenty-first century church. Who will we truly listen to the next time we are in the presence of our brothers and sisters in Jesus?
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