Notes on Life Together (Part 4 of 5)
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We continue through highlights of Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Community, the Day with Others, and the Day Alone are followed by today’s topic: Ministry. There is a lot of ground covered, but perhaps these snippets will entice you to pick up the book.
An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. Luke 9:46.
At the very beginning of Christian fellowship, there is an invisible life and death struggle. From the first moment one person meets another, he is looking for a strategic position over him, whether by strength, talents, sociability or even devotion. The struggle of the natural man for self-justification, self-assertion and the judgment of others exists no matter how pious the Christian community. Yet justification by grace leads to serving others. This is ministry.
MINISTRY OF HOLDING ONE’S TONGUE
The spirit of self-justification can only be overcome by the spirit of grace. We can combat isolated thoughts if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words (Psalm 50:20-21; Eph. 4:29; James 3:2, 4:22-12). Discipline of the tongue must be employed, even under the guise of help and good will, in order that we might stop constantly scrutinizing, judging and placing the other person where we might gain ascendency over him. God did not make my brother as I would have made him and did not give him to me to dominate and control. I can never know how God’s image should appear in others, just as the likeness of His Son, the Crucified, looked strange and ungodly before I grasped it. In his complete freedom from me, the purpose of my brother is that I might find above him the Creator. It is only the person that experiences the mercy of God, when the judge’s throne no longer lures, who will aspire to service. She wants to be with the needy because that is where God found her (Romans 12:16).
MINISTRY OF MEEKNESS
Only he who lives by forgiveness of his sin in Jesus can learn to serve, because he who wants to serve must think little of himself (Romans 12:3). He will know what is it to have reached the end of his own wisdom and that it is good for his own will to be broken. This person will be ready to consider his neighbor’s needs and honor more important and urgent than his own. Justice is done to me a thousands times, even in injustice, because I deserved worse but for God’s mercy (John 5:44; Eccl. 7:8). There exists a sin of resentment which flares up, revealing unbelief and a false desire for honor. Extremity is necessary here: one must, like Paul, consider oneself the greatest of sinners. 1 Timothy 1:15 sounds like untruth, but there can be no genuine acknowledgement of sin which does not lead here. We cannot serve another with unfeigned humility if we seriously believe that his sinfulness is worse than ours. This is hypocrisy.
MINISTRY OF LISTENING
Just as love for God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is listening to them. Christians feel that they must contribute something in the company of others and forget that listening can be of greater service than speaking. God also listens to us. He who can’t learn to patiently listen to a brother will soon no longer listen to God. He will continue to prattle without speaking to anyone. This is spiritual chatter, condescension, selfishness and folly. Wrong listening is with only half an ear, presuming to know what the other will say, impatient, inattentive, despising the brother and only waiting for time speak and be rid of the other person. He who thinks his time is too valuable to keep quiet will soon have no time for God nor the brother.
MINISTRY OF HELPFULNESS
No one is too good for the meanest of service. Active helpfulness is initially the simple assistance in trifling, external matters. We must be ready to be interrupted by God; if we begrudge the time, we take the importance of our career too seriously. God is constantly sending people with claims and petitions, and if we pass them by, we are passing by the visible sign of the cross which says not our way, but God’s way be done. Only when hands are not too good for deeds of love and mercy in everyday helpfulness can mouths joyfully and convincingly proclaim the message of God’s love and mercy.
MINISTRY OF BEARING
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2.
All of Christ’s life and the Christian life can be summarized in bearing, meaning forbearing and sustaining. It is the law of Christ, for Whom the burden of man was so heavy that He endured the cross (Isaiah 53:4-5). The fellowship of the cross, bearing the cross, is to experience the burden of another. In contrast, pagans sidestep burdens others impose on them. The Christian must learn to endure a brother, because only then does he cease to be a thing to be manipulated. To bear the burden of another is involvement in the created reality of another, to accept, affirm and bear with it, breaking through to the part where we take joy in it. The freedom of another person, his nature, individuality, endowment, weaknesses and oddities, are burdens to the Christian. It may collide with his own freedom, but he must honor and affirm it (Col. 3:13; Eph. 4:2). The sin of another is harder to bear than his freedom, because in sin, fellowship with God and the brother are broken. Cherish no contempt for the sinner but prize the privilege of bearing him, not giving him up for lost, but accepting him and preserving fellowship through forgiveness, as Christ bore and received us as sinners (Gal. 6:2). When sin occurs in the community, we must also examine ourselves for our own unfaithfulness in intercession, brotherly service, fraternal reproof and encouragement, as well as our own personal sin and spiritual laxity. In the midst of sin, the fellowship can rejoice in the privilege of bearing and forgiving.
MINISTRY OF PROCLAIMING
This ministry, in which a person bears witness in human words to another, bespeaking the “consolation, admonition, kindness and severity of God,” must be preceded by the other ministries. Is there anything more dangerous than speaking God’s Word in excess? However, we also do not want to be accountable for having been silent when we should have spoken. It can be difficult to speak, because of the fear of the other person, of speaking of ultimate matters, of distinguishing between right and wrong. We might also face the temptation to dominate the other. The other person has a right and duty to defend against such an attack. In speaking, we must remember that the one real dignity a man has is to share in God’s grace and glory. This gives our speech freedom and candor. The more we allow others to speak the Word to us and accept humbly and gratefully even severe admonitions, the more freely and objectively we will speak. The touchy person spurns a brother’s earnest censure, cannot speak truth in humility, is afraid of being rebutted and will become a flatterer and/or a slanderer of the brother. The humble person sticks to truth and love, to the Word of God, and lets it lead him to his brother. He seeks nothing for himself and has no fears for himself. The practice of discipline begins in the smallest circles; nothing is more compassionate than this. If we hinder God’s Word in us, our brother’s blood is on our hands (Ezek. 3:18). If we carry it out, God saves the brother through us (James 5:20). It is a ministry of mercy to lead a brother back from defection from God’s Word, but this is where the limitations of human action become apparent. Our brother’s ways are not in our hands; “we cannot hold together what is breaking,” but God can create community through separation and grace through judgment (Ps. 49:7-8).
MINISTRY OF AUTHORITY
Authority in fellowship depends on brotherly service. It is found only where all other ministries are carried out. Every cult of personality, emphasizing distinguished qualities and virtues, is from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men. Nothing so sharply contradicts genuine community. A bishop is nothing in himself but a simple, faithful man, sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to Christ. The Church then knows that it is not be guided by human conceit and brilliance, but by the Word of Christ. The question of trust and genuine authority is determined by the person’s faithfulness to Christ, a servant who seeks no power of his own, a brother among brothers, submitted to the authority of the Word (Mt. 23:8).
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