Hey everyone out there! I have not disappeared completely. I have been working on many things behind the scenes and wanted to kick start things here on the blog again.
I have been reading this new biography by Eric Metaxas with a reading group on Facebook. If you are interested in being a part of that group, let me know. We are breaking the book into two sections. We have completed the first half of the book and are now starting to discuss it.
I am posting here my first thoughts. This is not a review of the book by any means. That is not my goal. I am thinking about themes in Bonhoeffer’s life and how they impact us today.
Bonhoeffer Biography Part 1
I want everything!
I know. There are certain things you should expect from a biography and other things that are too ideal. I get it, but I don’t buy it. I refuse to be satisfied with just learning some nice information and going on my merry way. There is too much at stake as I live out my life and I want my time, reading or doing anything else, to have more to offer me than just a good time or interesting facts.
I want to be moved!
I want to see things that I have never seen before, things that will of necessity affect everything I do from this point on. Lofty goals, right? But this is serious and you should want these things too from “a simple book.” Books are not just black marks on a white page glued together.
Books are ideas waiting to be unwrapped and lived. They are passion and drama and they are meant to be life changing, the good books are anyways.
So, why is Bonhoeffer of any consequence to me in this peaceful life in the suburbs with my particular problems and struggles?
Life and Belief
What do I believe more—what I say I believe or what I actually live out every day? Is it possible to have one set of “beliefs” that I talk about and claim to hold, while I act on the exact opposite? Are “beliefs” simply what we have decided is the best view?
The constant refrain through the book so far is that learning impacts living. Amen!
While trained to be an intellectual, Bonhoeffer saw through the problems of the day to recognize that learning divorced from living was not true discipleship. He saw “that the overemphasis on the cerebral and intellectual side of geological training had produced pastors who didn’t know how to live as Christians, but knew how to think theologically. Integrating the two was increasingly important to him.’ (page 195)
If I claim to believe something, doesn’t that doctrine need to get into my bloodstream and flow out to my fingertips? Sure, there is always a lag time, the moment I learn something it is not immediately shot through to my walk, but should Christ’s disciples claim to believe something they spend most of their time ignoring?
James helps us here.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he is like.” James 1:22-24 ESV
What is your mirror and are you listening to it?
For Bonhoeffer, this was real, not a game to see who could come up with the right answer on a Bible quiz. Hitler was on a rampage and there were consequences for taking a stand. Believing and following Christ meant difficulty and possibly death. That leads to rigorous study. “One wished to arrive at answers that could stand up to every scrutiny because one would have to live out those conclusions.” (page 127)
Do you and I live out our conclusions?