Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community

already read it twice - now reading through it again and have been reminded what a punch this little book packs - seems like almost every page i've got something underlined or highlighted...

Short but profound book on community with other believers. Very appropriate right now for our church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's little book on the Christian community is full of practical insights and pithy truths that often mark Bonhoeffer's writings. Bonhoeffer wrote this for his students at the new "underground" seminary in Nazi Germany and it has topical chapters on community itself, the day with others, the day alone, ministry, and confession and communion. Bonhoeffer talks about family devotions and recommends his own way of doing things. He talks about the interdependence of community and isolation and how one who cannot handle the one cannot handle the other. He recommends brotherly confession because often people who confess alone to God are uncertain if they are simply dealing with themselves or with the living God. Brotherly confession ensures God's presence and fosters Christianity community as a community of sinners.

I would like to focus on his chapter on the ministry. It is delightful and starts with the most important aspects of ministry and works down from there. Bonhoeffer begins with the ministry of holding one's tongue. This means allowing the brother to be God's image and not your own. Second is the ministry of meekness and thinking lowly of yourself. This means living by the forgiveness of your sins in Jesus Christ. One who is meek will desire her neighbor's will and honor over her own. Third is the ministry of listening (not to be confused with holding one's tongue). This means that one is not simply waiting to speak in turn or sizing up a brother in order to hang him with his own words. No, this means sincere listening--"We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God." Fourth is the ministry of helpfulness. This is no lofty task but the willingness to help a brother in small, trivial matters at any time. "Only where hands are not too good for the deeds of love and mercy in everyday helpfulness can the mouth joyfully and convincingly proclaim the message of God's love and mercy." Fifth is the ministry of bearing since the brother is a burden to the Christian, "precisely because he is a Christian." A brother's freedom and its abuse can become burdensome. Of course one bears a brother's sins and we may suffer them but never need to judge. This type of bearing is mutual since one has a part in the sins of a brother but this leads to forgiveness and the joy it brings.

Only when these ministries are performed can the ministry of proclaiming the Word of God properly take place. The ministry of proclaiming is not preaching from a pulpit but speaking the "whole consolation of God, the admonition, the kindness, and the severity of God" to others at the right time. Here is why one must do the other ministries before speaking the word: "If it is not accompanied by worthy listening, how can it really be the right word for the other person? If it is contradicted by one's own lack of active helpfulness, how can it be a convincing and sincere word? If it issues, not from a spirit of bearing and forbearing, but from impatience and the desire to force its acceptance, how can it be the liberating and healing word?"

Furthermore, this ministry is difficult because often the people who are able to do it properly
are scared to speak thinking that mere words can do little. Yet, we are obligated to proclaim God's word to our brother and the more people proclaim it to us as we accept the severe reproaches and admonitions "the more free and objective will we be in speaking ourselves."

Last is the ministry of authority from which all these other ministries flow. I found these two pages to be the most profound and indicting of the entire book. In my old circles I've met too many "pastors" that fail in this regard and fail proudly. I will quote Bonhoeffer at length here:

"Jesus made authority in the fellowship dependent upon brotherly service. Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only where the ministry of hearing, helping, bearing, and proclaiming is carried out. Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed, it poisons the Christian community. The desire we so often hear expressed today for "episcopal figures," "priestly men," "authoritative personalities" springs frequently enough from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishement of visible human authority, because the genuine authority of service appears to be so unimpressive. There is nothing that so sharply contradicts such a desire as the New Testament itself in its description of a bishop (1 Tim 3:1ff.). One finds there nothing whatsoever with respect to worldly charm and the brilliant attributes of a spiritual personality. The bishop is the simple, faithful man, sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to the Church. His authority lies in the exercise of his ministry. In the man himself there is nothing to admire.

"Ultimately, this hankering for false authority has at its root a desire to re-establish some sort of immediacy, a dependence upon human beings in the Church. Genuine authority knows that all immediacy is especially baneful in matters of authority. Genuine authority realizes that it can exist only in the service of Him who alone has authority. Genuine authority knows that it is bound in the strictest sense by the saying of Jesus: 'One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren" (Matt 23:8). The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.

"The question of trust, which is so closely related to that of authority, is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents which he possesses. Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word."

Amen!

the book on christian fellowship and community--sets the bar very high and offers a much needed reflection for our individualistic, tribal context in postmodern america!

This book definitely gave me some food for thought, but sometimes Bonhoeffer leaves me feeling like I'll never measure up to his standards!

This is one of my favorite books. I often have my students read it to bettter understand Christian community.

Excellent. Fellow introverts - there is no avoiding community after reading this. What a gift to Christian literature.

Simple, short book, but also very deep. Talks of timeless truths about community, prayer, and church expectations.

Great ecclesialogical theologizing. We should not idealize "church" into our "wish dreams". Such dreams will eventually be exposed as illusions. I think many anti-fundamentalist Mennonites do this. Then the church becomes merely therapeutic.

Amazingly well-thought and articulate description of a truly Biblical concept of community...not the Christian "buzzword" that has been floating around of late. The book does bog down a bit in chapter 2, where he launches into an exhaustive prescription for communal life that would not be applicable in anything other than a monastic setting. However, the rest of theory in the book is beautiful, daring, Scripturally-based, and challenging.