Life Together – Chapter 1
1. Two quotes
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalms 133:1).
"The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ ! If Christ had done what you are doing , who would ever have been spared.” (Martin Luther)
2. How does God bring community to you
“Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”
“The measure with which God bestows the gift of visible community is varied”
3. Main 3 points
***Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus. He says later –“ we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients” – Christian brotherhood is not an idea! which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. We are bound together by faith, not by experience.
a. It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ.
-Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation
-community of Christians springs solely from the Biblical and Reformation message of the justification of man through grace alone
b. Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ.
-Without Christ there is discord between God and man and between man and man. Christ became the Mediator and made peace with God and among men
-Without Christ we should not know God, we could not call upon Him, nor come to Him. But without Christ we also would not know our brother, nor could we come to him. The way is blocked by our own ego.
c. It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.
We belong to him because we are in him – in him for eternity
We have been chosen and accepted with the whole Church in Jesus Christ, then we also belong to him in eternity with one another
What God did to us, we then owed to others.The more we received, the more we were able to give; and the more meager our brotherly love, the less were we living by God's mercy and love. . Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. . I am a brother to another person through what Jesus Christ did for me and to me; the other person has become a brother to me through what Jesus Christ did for him
4. Conflict among Christian communities – “The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us.”
5 In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning, first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.
6. Visionary thinking – “Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive” This causes man to set up his own structures – his demands, laws — systems, rules
7. Sin – Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? – neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds
8. Giving thanks -In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life. Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things… We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? ?
If we do not give thanks and are complainers then we hinder God’s work in letting fellowship grow and riches in Christ
9. Individual disagreements, alienation – better look within yourself – “whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God – . Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren.
10. Contrast – spiritual with the human – .
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Spiritual |
Human |
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The basis of all spiritual reality is the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. spiritual love lives in the clear light of service ordered by the truth
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The basis of all human reality is the dark, turgid urges and desires of the human mind. (controlled and uncontrolled) |
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The essence of the community of the Spirit is light, for "God is light, |
The essence of human community of spirit is darkness, "for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts" |
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. The community of the Spirit is the fellowship of those who are called by Christ |
human community of spirit is the fellowship of devout souls |
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. In the community of the Spirit there burns the bright love of brotherly service |
in human community of spirit there glows the dark love of good and evil desire, eros |
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is ordered, brotherly service |
disordered desire for pleasure. Human love desires the other person, his company, his answering love, but it does not serve him. |
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subjection to the brethren |
humble yet haughty subjection of a brother to one's own desire… |
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Spirit the Word of God alone rules |
along with the Word, the man who is furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities |
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God's Word alone is binding; here, besides the Word, men bind others to themselves. There all power, honor, and dominion are surrendered to the Holy Spirit. Spirit governs |
spheres of power and influence of a personal nature are sought and cultivated. Human governs |
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never, nor in any way, any "immediate" relationship of one to another It will rather meet the other person with the clear Word of God and be ready to leave him alone with this Word for a long time, willing to release him again in order that Christ may deal with him.
. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of others is wholly dependent upon the truth in Christ
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Self-centered, strong persons enjoy life to the full, securing for himself the admiration, the love, or the fear of the weak. Here human ties, suggestive influences, and bonds are everything Thus there is such a thing as human absorption. The weak have been overcome by the strong, the resistance of the weak has broken down under the influence of another person
He has been overpowered, but not won over by the thing itself Here is where the humanly converted person breaks down and thus makes it evident that his conversion was effected, not by the Holy Spirit, but by a man, and therefore has no stability |
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spiritual love is bound solely to the Word of Jesus Christ |
Human love has little regard for truth. It makes the truth relative, Human love makes itself an end in itself. It creates of itself an end, an idol which it worships, to which it must subject everything |
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. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ |
Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become |
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Human love produces human subjection, dependence, constraint. spiritual love creates freedom of the brethren under the Word |
11. Connect to the whole church – “In other words life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy only where it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium" pietatis, but rather where it understands itself as being a partof the one, holy, catholic, Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles and promises of the whole Church
.. When the way of intellectual or spiritual selection is taken the human element always insinuates itself and robs the fellowship of its spiritual power and effectiveness for the Church, drives it into sectarianism.
Life Together – Chapter 4
1. The greatest – But the important thing is that a Christian community should know that somewhere in it there will certainly be "a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest," It is the struggle of the natural man self-justification. He finds it only in comparing himself with others, in condemning and judging others. Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together
2 The Ministry of Holding One's Tongue
–Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words. He who holds his tongue in check controls both mind and body (Jas 3:2ff)
-This prohibition does not include the personal word of advice and guidance: on this point we shall speak later.
-Don’t talk about people -But to speak about a brother covertly is forbidden, even under the cloak of help and good will; for it is precisely in this guise that the spirit of hatred among brothers always creeps in when it is seeking to create mischief
– When you speak evil of one you judge someone which is God’s right rather practice the law
– if do this, it allows brother to exist as a completely free person, as God made him to be. . He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator.
– When we judge we are making the other person’s image in my own image –“God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image. “
-Each member of the community is given his particular place, but this is no longer the place in which he can most successfully assert himself, but the place where he can best perform his service.
– Links and everyone should have a definite task to perform for the community. In a community which allows unemployed members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well, therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship
-Not self-justification, which means the use of domination and force, but justification by grace, and therefore service, should govern the Christian community.Once a man has experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve
3. Ministry of Meekness
– Think little of self and think highly of others – . He who would learn to serve must first learn to think little of himself. Let no man "think of himself more higher than he ought to think" (Rom. 12:3).
-Only he who lives by the forgiveness of his sin in Jesus Christ will rightly think little of himself. He will know that his own wisdom reached the end of its tether when Jesus forgave him.
– better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?
The desire for one's own honor hinders faith. One who seeks his own honor is no longer seeking God and his neighbor. What does it matter if I suffer injustice? Would I not have deserved even se punishment from God, if He had not dealt with me according to His mercy "The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit" (Eccles. 7:8).
-One who lives by justification by grace is willing and ready to accept even insults and injuries without protest, taking them from God's punishing and gracious hand. In any case, none of us will really act as Jesus and Paul did if we have not first learned, like them, to keep silent under abuse.
-The sin of resentment that flares up so quickly in the fellowship indicates again and again how much false desire for honor, how much unbelief, still smolders in the community.
4. Ministry of Listening
The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them… We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.
– Listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people are looking for an ear that will listen.
-If not listen to brother will soon no longer listening to God either. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.
– Listen to confession –“It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. “
5. The Ministry of Helpfulness
– Taking self too seriously if not help othersOne who worries about the loss of time that such petty, outward acts of helpfulness, entail is usually taking the importance of his own career too solemnly.
-We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks… They think they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God's "crooked yet straight path"
-In the monastery his vow of obedience to the abbot deprives the monk of the right to dispose of his own time. In evangelical community life, free service to one's brother takes the place of the vow. Only where hands are not too good for deeds of love and mercy in everyday helpfulness can the mouth joyfully and convincingly proclaim the message of God's love and mercy.
6. The Ministry of Bearing
-Bearing means forbearing and sustaining
-He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. . They must suffer their brethren, but, what is more important, now that the law of Christ has been fulfilled, they can bear with their brethren.
It is, first of all, the freedom of the other person, of which we spoke earlier, that is a burden to the Christian. The other's freedom collides with his own autonomy, yet he must recognize it. . The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person's nature, individuality, endowment. It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us. To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it, and, in bearing with it, to break through to the point where we take joy in it.
None must seek his own rights
The sin of the other person is harder to bear than his freedom; for in sin, fellowship with God and with the brother is broken. Here the Christian suffers the rupture of his fellowship with the other person that had its basis in Jesus Christ. But here, too, it is only in bearing with him that the great grace of God becomes wholly plain – don’t give him up as lost, to be able to accept him, to preserve fellowship with him through forgiveness.
We may suffer the sins of our brother; we do not need to judge
7. The Ministry of Proclaiming
The free communication of the Word from person to person – must be accompanied with active listening, helping
We speak to one another on the basis of the help we both need. We admonish one another to go the way that Christ bids us to go
The more we learn to allow others to speak the Word to us, to accept humbly and gratefully even severe reproaches and admonitions, the more free and objective will we be in speaking ourselves
Discipline- The practice of discipline in the congregation begins in the smallest circles. We must confront people in sin but not judge them. We must speak from God – his Word spoken through us and God will save our brother through us
8. The Ministry of Authority –
Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister" (Mark 10:43). However, it is dependent on faithful service until God and not based on “qualities, virtues and talents” of the person