Thoughts to Ponder

For Christmas my friend Amber was given a book titled: "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy" by Eric Metaxes. I had heard of it recently, so when she was reading it, I asked her if I could read it when she was finished. She gave me the book last week, and I have been pouring through it. It has been rather difficult to put down actually. This is not a dry biography by any means. A number of years ago, my family got a copy of the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre's version of the life of Bonhoeffer. I have listened to it several times and each time it has moved me deeply. Reading his biography now is giving me an even deeper understanding of this amazing man used by God in extraordinary ways. I read a quote by Bonhoeffer that comes from a letter he wrote to his brother-in-law, Rudiger Schleicher. I shall quote it directly as it is very powerful and so true.

"First of all I will confess quite simply--I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply "read" the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us.

Of course, it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is mothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, "pondering them in our heart," so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible...

If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever will find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament." --Deitrich Bonhoeffer (1936)

I could commentate on what this means to me, but I think I would rather you think about it yourself and what it means to you.

Here is another thing to ponder that Bonhoeffer wrote. "He pointed out that nowadays we often ask ourselves whether we still need the Church, whether we still need God. But this question, he said, is wrong. We are the ones who are questioned. The Church exists and God exists, and we are asked whether we are willing to be of service, for God needs us" (Bonhoeffer, 125).