If you saw my post last night that was a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then you might know that I have started reading his book The Cost of Discipleship. However, even if that didn't do it, then the first sentence of this blog should have! :o)
Yes, he was no Baptist. Any the reviews I have read would suggest that he was not even an Evangelical in the sense that we view it. I don't know since I have not studied out his life and religion at this time. However, I am going to apply the same principle I do to St. Augustine: I may not agree with everything, but I can still learn as long as I am careful what I accept as fact or not. So, that in mind, here are some opening thoughts that are mine but greatly influenced by the beginning of his book. So here goes.
First, don't yell at me about works based salvation. I said that grace was not free....not that salvation wasn't free. In fact, James talks about this in James 2:14-26.
Think about it. Did God send his only son to die on a cross so that we could accept salvation and then... only think about our heavenly father for about 1-2 hours per week? What is that? That is a lack of appreciation and gratitude for a gift. Yet....it is more than that too.
Romans 12:1-2 tells us in the ESV that offering our bodies as a living sacrifice is our spiritual worship. The KJV uses "reasonable service." The idea is that offering our lives as a sacrifice is the logical act of worship that we should be doing based on Christ's fulfillment of the law and our being justified by faith alone. So, justification by faith should drive us to giving Christ our lives...which is a heavy price. This isn't what the most spiritual of us should be doing ,it is what ALL of us should be doing.
So, in the Middle Ages, we had the monasteries and the monastic system. The goal was pure, but what it taught people was that a select few Christians - the best of us - would dedicate themselves to living for God and everyone else could do whatever and still be justified. Even if they weren't terrible Christians, it was only the monks and abbots that truly dedicated their whole life to God. Today we have the same concept but we put it on pastors and missionaries to be the super Christians. Not only is this ridiculous, it is dangerous and it is terrifying. It breeds a mentality of apathy which, I would argue, is one of the (if not the) most insidious kind of sickness in our modern, American, Christian circles.
Yet, instead of dying to self and sacrificing myself to God, I live no different than the people around me. Unless a conversation comes up about "religion," people around me may or may not even know I'm a Christ follower. That is me living either ashamed of my God or ungrateful for his sacrifice. Shame on me!
Thoughts? Comments? Leave them below or on Facebook. I'd love to hear them!
Yes, he was no Baptist. Any the reviews I have read would suggest that he was not even an Evangelical in the sense that we view it. I don't know since I have not studied out his life and religion at this time. However, I am going to apply the same principle I do to St. Augustine: I may not agree with everything, but I can still learn as long as I am careful what I accept as fact or not. So, that in mind, here are some opening thoughts that are mine but greatly influenced by the beginning of his book. So here goes.
First, don't yell at me about works based salvation. I said that grace was not free....not that salvation wasn't free. In fact, James talks about this in James 2:14-26.
Think about it. Did God send his only son to die on a cross so that we could accept salvation and then... only think about our heavenly father for about 1-2 hours per week? What is that? That is a lack of appreciation and gratitude for a gift. Yet....it is more than that too.
Romans 12:1-2 tells us in the ESV that offering our bodies as a living sacrifice is our spiritual worship. The KJV uses "reasonable service." The idea is that offering our lives as a sacrifice is the logical act of worship that we should be doing based on Christ's fulfillment of the law and our being justified by faith alone. So, justification by faith should drive us to giving Christ our lives...which is a heavy price. This isn't what the most spiritual of us should be doing ,it is what ALL of us should be doing.
So, in the Middle Ages, we had the monasteries and the monastic system. The goal was pure, but what it taught people was that a select few Christians - the best of us - would dedicate themselves to living for God and everyone else could do whatever and still be justified. Even if they weren't terrible Christians, it was only the monks and abbots that truly dedicated their whole life to God. Today we have the same concept but we put it on pastors and missionaries to be the super Christians. Not only is this ridiculous, it is dangerous and it is terrifying. It breeds a mentality of apathy which, I would argue, is one of the (if not the) most insidious kind of sickness in our modern, American, Christian circles.
Yet, instead of dying to self and sacrificing myself to God, I live no different than the people around me. Unless a conversation comes up about "religion," people around me may or may not even know I'm a Christ follower. That is me living either ashamed of my God or ungrateful for his sacrifice. Shame on me!
Thoughts? Comments? Leave them below or on Facebook. I'd love to hear them!
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