Apprentice 2 Jesus

Bonhoeffer

  • Thoughts on stupidity

    I am reading through Letters and Papers from Prison (Bonhoeffer) from the Fortress Press series. This volume opens with a prologue, which seems to be some reflections from Bonhoeffer around 1942. It’s been about 10 years since Hitler has hit the scene and Bonhoeffer is reflecting on key areas that have been influential in that… Read more

  • Living in chaos

    I am currently reading through Bonhoeffer the Assassin? by Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony Siegrist, and Daniel Umbel. They take on what they call the “myth” that Bonhoeffer was an active participant in the plots to assassinate Hitler. Read more

  • How to train pastors

    I am fairly locked into the life of Bonhoeffer right now. I am working through a book, Bonhoeffer the Assassin? by Nation, Siegrist, and Umbel. I read Marsh’s biography of Bonhoeffer and recently finished Life Together by Bonhoeffer. We need his example in this day for our cultural Christianity. Read more

  • The image of God in others

    “I can never know in advance how God’s image should appear in others. That image always takes on a completely new and unique form whose origin is found solely in God’s free and sovereign act of creation. To me that form may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every person in the image of… Read more

  • Why Bonhoeffer matters

    I need the reminders of Bonhoeffer’s life. I’ve read The Cost of Discipleship several times. I am grateful for Charles Marsh’s biography on Bonhoeffer to stir my thinking again. The newest Bonhoeffer movie was fraught with land mines because it somehow got associated with a certain biographer who has turned Bonhoeffer into the symbol of… Read more

  • Bonhoeffer, nationalism, and the Kingdom of God

    Some thoughts from my reading of Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh. There had been some Americans who had tried to get Bonhoeffer out of Germany before it was too late for him personally. They arranged for him to come to New York again and teach at Union Seminary. Read more

  • Transparency in the Body of Christ

    “It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.… Read more

  • The place of community in the Body of Christ

    “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community… Let him who is not in community beware of being alone… Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of… Read more

  • How does love become unconquerable?

    How does love become unconquerable? By never asking what the enemy is doing to it, and only asking what Jesus has done. Loving one’s enemies leads disciples to the way of the cross and into communion with the crucified one. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer Lord, I confess I all too often want my enemies crushed… and… Read more

  • The DEEP cost of folowing Jesus

    It turns out  Jesus really  means it when he says to folllow him! Not just  when it is convenient, but  when it is hard. It  is ot just  about blessing friends.. but blessing enemies  as  well. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Where in the world is there greater need, where are deeper wounds and pain than those of… Read more