Peace to my Logos Forums Community of Brothers and Sisters in the Lord...
and to all those at Logos who work so hard for our benefit....
And! Great Joy in the Lord! *smile*
Many have suggested some or even all the works of Bonhoeffer. I most certainly concur and ask Logos to please do what they can to make this available to us in a Logos Format.
Just became excited again after reading from my personal archives a post that I saved addressed to busy church workers....
It goes:
Encouragement for Busy Church Leaders
The Necessity of the Word of God and Prayer in
Public Ministry and Personal Life
The Word of God and prayer that are foundational for the Public Ministry to which we are called need also to be the lifeblood of our personal spiritual life. While few would argue about the first half of the above statement, I wonder how many would affirm the second half. Even when we focus on Paul's encouragement to the Colossians, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly," we most often use it on the side of Public Ministry, but seldom consider it as applying to personal spiritual growth. When was the last conversation you had with another professional Church Worker that was focused more on the Word of God impacting you (or them) personally in your journey of life and ministry?
As the N azis more and more took over control of everything including the Seminaries, (Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his colleagues) began a Seminary of their own. Bonhoeffer's book Meditating on the Word was written to Seminary students to give them practical encouragement to "let the Word of Christ dwell in (them) richly." Since I discovered and read this book in September 1988, I've been sharing it every opportunity I get.
Consider this paragraph from the Introduction by the translator: "The heart of God opens itself to us in God's Word", Bonhoeffer wrote to a friend, and it is in our human hearts that he believed it should find its home. He lived in such intimate relationship with Scriptures, reading and "praying it" daily, that he could hear it as a "burning word" spoken to him personally by Jesus; he could read it as a "love letter from God." (p.9)
Bonhoeffer discovered in teaching and mentoring Seminarians, that they continued asking two questions: "How can I learn to pray? How can I learn to read the Bible?" His instruction was clear, specific and practical and personal: "we begin our meditations with the prayer for the Holy Spirit, asking for proper concentration. Then we turn to the text. What text, and how long should it be? It has proven helpful to meditate on a text of approximately 10 to 15 verses for a period of a week. It is not good to meditate on a different text each day, since we are not always equally as receptive, and the texts for the most part are too long for that. The time of meditation is in the morning before the beginning of our work. A half hour is the minimum amount of time which a proper mediation requires. It is, of course, necessary that there be complete quiet, and that we intend to allow nothing to divert us, no matter how important it may seem." (p.33-34)
There you have it -- clear, specific, practical, and personal. I have never heard or seen any encouragement like it. It has shaped my own personal pattern of meditation on the Word for the last twenty years. For Bonhoeffer, it was not about words, it was about a living relationship with Christ. "We want in any case to rise up from our meditation in a different state from when we sat down. We want to meet Christ in his Word. We turn to the text in our desire to hear what it is that he wants to give us and teaches today through his Word." (p.32)
In a future CMGS "e-newsletter" I will share more from Bonhoeffer, but now, back to the Word. For the next two weeks, explore Bonhoeffer's pattern of meditation. Begin with prayer, then in week one, spend 15-30 minutes meditating on Psalm 42; in week two, meditate on Psalm 46. See "what he wants to give you and teach you through his word." Pray this John Baillie prayer:
"May Jesus Christ be today the companion of my thoughts,
that his Spirit may more and more take root in my soul." (p. 133)
Next, we will consider what it might mean for us to take seriously to "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" the Word.
Pastor Walt Waiser
Peace Lutheran, Hurst, Texas
"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly..." Colossians 3:16 (ESV)
