Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Bonhoeffer: Single-Minded Obedience (Ch. 3)

What if Jesus came to you and said, "Leave everything you have and follow me"--including home, family, job, all of it?  Would we?  Could we?

When I was 12 God called me to leave behind dreams and potential in order to serve him.  So, I did not pursue a music career, or an engineering degree, or attempt to play sports in college (not that it would have made any difference).  In some ways, it was easier to give up those potentialities than to think of giving up current realities.  And now, I am faced daily with this thought: Did Christ call me then to live how I am now?  Or are there still things in life that require a daily response of "Here I am.  Send me."

Bonhoeffer has encouraged me to again think on these things with his continued dialog on obedience.  In CH. 3 he hits particularly hard on the excuses that we use to avoid true discipleship and obedience.  His launching point is the sorrow of the Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19 who could not obediently respond to God's call, and thus lost an opportunity of discipleship.    In his discussion he further explains the relationship of faith and obedience.  "The actual call of Jesus and the response of single-minded obedience have an irrevocable significance.  By means of them Jesus calls people into an actual situation where faith is possible.  For that reason his call is an actual call and he wishes it so to be understood, because he knows that it is only thorugh actual obedience that a man can become liberated to believe."

Thus, the call itself empowers both inward belief and outward actions of faith.  This reasoning leads to a firm conclusion:  We cannot believe without God himself acting on us and in us.

And what is Christ's calling?  FOLLOW ME!  This is the mantra of the disciple.  Follow Jesus.  Wherever he leads.  Whatever he says.  Whenever he speaks.  Obey.

So, how are you doing today in your single-minded obedience, which is faith in action?
James 1
  5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.


As a side note, I find myself connecting the book of James to the thoughts of Bonhoeffer.  I wonder what Luther himself would say to Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism, knowing how much Luther liked the book of James.

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7 Comments:

Blogger RobeFRe said...

It's kinda hard to follow that first comment, but doesn't God 'call' us to abandon all, and then He tends to lead us right back into where we are from, in order to give us the opportunity to love where we have, if not hated, perhaps been at best ambivalent, hope where we have been hopeless, at peace where we have had angst, and determined where we were aimless. And as we become whole then we grow.(I love the opportunity to start a sentence with a conjunction!8~)

February 17, 2010 at 10:21 AM  
Blogger Randy Rogers said...

The first comment should read "What if", not "What is." It has been corrected.

March 3, 2010 at 8:29 AM  
Blogger Randy Rogers said...

And I agree with you on the conjunction.

March 3, 2010 at 8:29 AM  
Blogger Randy Rogers said...

So, clarify for me--does God call us to abandon all, or not? You know, I can make a good argument for God calling us to leave everything behind.

I read in your final comments that regardless of what we give up for God, we will find that he will make up for it with Kingdom blessings--where we will reap 30, 60, 100 times what we left behind. Job experienced this blessing as well.

March 3, 2010 at 8:32 AM  
Blogger RobeFRe said...

1) you deleted the comment I was referring to and thankfully so. Some anonymous claptrap.

If I remember my process at the time I was thinking that one of the first(or consistant) items on God's agenda for us is to realign our thinking toward His, so we must introspectively consider His Will in our life and we either make those adjustments, which is a degree of suffering-leaving behind the old comfortable shoes for the new wearever pair.

Now I would say to you that early on I kept waiting for God to say in some obvious way, 'Robert, go and do thusly!' But I had to pay bills so I went forwards into jobs I could find and took them, or I came across a situation that I could aattend to and so I did without sure knowledge of my appropriateness to the site other than homilaically I was the first trained/certified CPR abled body by an accident and so must by obligation stop to render aid. Do I suffer for that? Only as I stare at my navel. If I keep my mind on my surroundings, understanding that in my surroundings I see God quite easily, then I will find the gristmill droppings in the whispers and accolades of the fair-minded souls who observe from nearby.

So, it would seem to me that God calls us to be content with who we are by removing us from temptation,(Oswald Chambers wrote that before we are Christian we are tempted to naughty behaviours, but after we are Christian we are tmepted to put ourselves back on the throne) and covering up the reason for our guilt. Adam was not to sing hymns and read scripture all day, He was also to tend the garden and name the types.

March 4, 2010 at 11:34 PM  
Blogger RobeFRe said...

I may not be the expert needed to address total abandonment, that would really seem to be involved within the context of the sancitfication process which may fairly be described as never complete until the day of judgement. Now if the sanctification were not processional then we would never sin again after salvation. But whether we are immediately sancitified or by process of learning to trust God more and more, you know that prayer "Lord I believe, Lord help me with my unbelief!" But when I arrive at the throne of judgement I am sure I will be, if not alone at least without any material trappings and thus in a sense totally abandoned to focus on the Rightous Judge and King of Kings!

March 5, 2010 at 11:37 AM  
Blogger RobeFRe said...

God called Adam to philotype and garden, He calls us to be all that He wants us to be, for Saul of Tarsus that was abandonment of his name and most of the benefits of privilege he had previously experienced. Billy Graham on the other hand seems to have lived comfortably and with many of the accoutrement of the 'Jet Set'. God's call seems to be played out as very personal and individual while perhaps starting at a place of total, if not disregard for self then, submission to God.

March 31, 2010 at 4:54 PM  

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