![]() ![]() And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. “ And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. I am trying a Bonhoeffer-inspired approach to Scripture these days: reading a passage and then asking the Lord what He wants me to meditate on for the week. I need Him to lead me to be holy as He is holy. I need to confess my sin and know His grace. Like the little Wemmick in Max Lucado’s ( You are Special) children’s book who cares so much about the kind of dots others stick to Him, I need to come daily to my Maker. I find that I am so prone to wander spiritually, so quick to seek joy elsewhere, so easily discouraged, that more than anything else, I need to hear daily from Jesus. It was a practice many of them would carry throughout their lives, and one that sustained Bonhoeffer in dark days. This proved very difficult and frustrating for some students, but in the end fruitful. They were to simply ask what God had to say to them in His Word. They were so accustomed to dissecting each verse, theorizing and debating, looking up the Greek and Hebrew, that they were inept at actually knowing how to hear from God through His Word! So he made them meditate on a single passage each week and barred them from doing any formal research. There are many treasures I took away from reading it, but one simple idea was the way Bonhoeffer taught his seminary students to read the Bible. It was weighty, sobering, heart-breaking, and hope-giving. I just finished the Bonhoeffer biography I told you about last time. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27 ESV) And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. “ Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ![]()
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