• Chap 1 on Community states that even a noble sincere Christian (perhaps myself?) can destroy authentic Christian fellowship by trying to impose his biblical idealistic “wish dream” on his Christian community.
• Chap 4 on Christian Ministry stresses silence and listening before talking/teaching. (My wife loves to remind me that this is the most important chapter for me!)
• Chap 5 on Confession encourages all Christians to confess their sins to one another without which we will become an elite Pharisees club, a collegium pietatis, an assembly of the pious and super apostles, where real sinners are not allowed to join.

My 4th and final blog on Chap 3 is silence and solitude. (Someday I may reflect on Chap 2–The Day with Others–about how Christians spend each day from morning to night.) Silence is crucial for Christians to hear the Word: “There are 3 purposes for which the Christian needs a definite time when he can be alone during the day: Scripture meditation, prayer, and intercession.” “Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word. (Silence) is something that needs to be practiced and learned, in these days when talkativeness prevails.” “Let none expect from silence anything but a direct encounter with the Word of God.”

If you cannot be alone, beware of community. Why? “You cannot escape from yourself.” “Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are driven to seek the company of other people. There are Christians, too, who cannot endure being alone…(hoping to) gain some help in association with others. They (become) disappointed. Then they blame the fellowship for what is really their own fault.”

If you are not in community, beware of being alone. “If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Christ, and your solitude can only be hurtful to you.”

Only within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. “Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in fellowship. Both begin at the same time, namely, with the call of Christ.”

Alone and Community: Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. “One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.” “Along with … fellowship together there goes the lonely day of the individual. The day together will be unfruitful without the day alone.”

Silence and Speech. “The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.” “Silence does not mean dumbness, as speech does not mean chatter. Dumbness does not create solitude and chatter does not create fellowship.”

“Silence before the Word leads to right hearing and thus also to right speaking of the Word of God at the right time. Much that is unnecessary remains unsaid. But the essential and the helpful thing can be said in a few words.”

Meditation. “Read God’s Word as God’s Word for us. Do not ask what this text has to say to other people. For the preacher this means that he will not ask how he is going to preach or teach on this text, but what it is saying quite directly to him. Often we are so burdened and overwhelmed with other thoughts, images, and concerns that it may take a long time before God’s Word has swept all else aside and come through. God’s Word…strives to stir us, to work and operate in us, so that we shall not get away from it the whole day long. Then it will do its work in us, often without our being conscious of it. Spiritual dryness and apathy, an aversion, even an inability to meditate…must not keep us from adhering to our meditation period with great patience and fidelity. ‘Seek God, not happiness’–this is the fundamental rule of all meditation. If you seek God alone, you will gain happiness: that is its promise.”

Prayer. “The most promising method of prayer is to allow oneself to be guided by the word of the Scriptures, to pray on the basis of a word of Scripture. Prayer means nothing else but the readiness and willingness to receive and appropriate the Word, to accept it in one’s personal situation, particular tasks, decisions, (clarification of our day), (preservation from) sins, and temptations….for growth in sanctification, for faithfulness and strength in our work.”

Intercession. “A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. How does this happen? Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God, to see him under the Cross of Jesus as a poor human being and sinner in need of grace. Then everything in him that repels us falls away; we see him in all his destitution and need. Intercession is a daily service we owe to God and our brother. He who denies his neighbor the service of praying for him denies him the service of a Christian. The ministry of intercession requires time of every Christian, but most of all of the pastor who has the responsibility of a whole congregation. We should train ourselves to set apart a regular hour for it. This is not ‘legalism’; it is orderliness and fidelity. For the pastor it is an indispensable duty and his whole ministry will depend on it.”

Time alone with God enhances community together with others.

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2. Pious Fellowship Permits No Sinners A Christian’s “wish dream” destroys Christian community. In Community (Chap...
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1. The Ministry of Holding One’s Tongue (Ps 50:19-21; Jas 1:26, 3:2, 4:11-12; Eph 4:29)
2. The Ministry of Meekness (Rom 12:3,16)
3. The Ministry of Listening (Jas 1:19)
4. The Ministry of Helpfulness (Phil 2:4)
5. The Ministry of Bearing (Gal 6:2; Col 3:13; Eph 4:12)
6. The Ministry of Proclaiming (2 Tim 4:2)
7. The Ministry of Authority (Mk 10:43)

Who is Greater? Every Christian community begins with a seed of discord, which is “an argument … among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest” (Lk 9:46). “Hence it is vitally necessary that every Christian community from the very outset face this dangerous enemy…for from the first moment when a man meets another person he is looking for a strategic position he can assume and hold against that person. It is the struggle of the natural man for 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.”

Hold Your Tongue. “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…” (Ps 50:19-21; Jas 4:11-12; Eph 4:29) This should help us “to cease from constantly scrutinizing the other person, judging him, condemning him. Strong and weak, wise and foolish, gifted or ungifted, pious or impious, the diverse individuals in the community, are no longer incentives for talking, judging, condemning, and thus excuses for self-justification. They are rather cause for rejoicing in one another and serving one another. 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 the 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.”

Meekness. “He who would learn to serve must first learn to think little of himself.” (Rom 12:3,16) “This is the highest and most profitable lesson, truly to know and to despise ourselves. To have no opinion of ourselves, and to think always well and highly of others, is great wisdom and perfection” (Thomas Kempis). “Because the Christian can no longer fancy that he is wise he will also have no high opinion of his own schemes and plans. He will be ready to consider his neighbor’s will more important and urgent than his own. The desire for one’s own honor hinders faith. One who seeks his own honor is no longer seeking God and his neighbor. (Jn 5:44) What does it matter if I suffer injustice? Would I not have deserved even worse punishment from God? One who lives by justification by grace is willing and ready to accept even insults and injuries without protest. If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most grievous, the most reprehensible. Brotherly love will find any number of extenuations for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no apology whatsoever. ‘Never think that thou hast made any progress till thou look upon thyself as inferior to all’ (Thomas Kempis).”

Listening. “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them.” Do not “forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be 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 clerical condescension arrayed in pious words. There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”

Helpfulness. “The second service that one should perform for another in a Christian community is that of active helpfulness. 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. It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them.They think they are doing God a service, but actually they are disdaining God.”

Bearing (Gal 6:2; Col 3:13; Eph 4:12). “Bearing means forbearing and sustaining. The brother is a burden to the Christian, precisely because he is a Christian. For the pagan the other person never becomes a burden. He simply sidesteps every burden that others may impose upon him. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated.” Jesus did likewise (Isa 53:4-5). “To cherish no contempt for the sinner but rather to prize the privilege of bearing him means not to have to give him up as lost, to be able to accept him, to preserve fellowship with him through forgiveness.”

The key sentence in regards to Ministry: “Where the ministry of listening, active helpfulness, and bearing with others is faithfully performed, the ultimate and highest service can also be rendered, namely, the ministry of the Word of God.”

Proclaiming. “…in which one person bears witness in human words to another person, speaking the whole consolation of God, the admonition, the kindness, and the severity of God. (But if the speaking of the Word) is not accompanied by worthy listening, (active helpfulness, from a spirit of bearing and forbearing rather than impatience and the desire to force its acceptance) how can it really be the right word for the other person?” “We warn one another against the disobedience that is our common destruction. We are gentle and we are severe with one another, for we know both God’s kindness and God’s severity. Why should we be afraid of one another, since both of us have only God to fear?” “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.” “(The) renunciation of our own ability is precisely the prerequisite and the sanction for the redeeming help that only the Word of God can give to the brother. (Ps 49:7-8; Jas 5:20)”

Authority (Mk 10:43). “Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only where the ministry of hearing, helping, bearing, and proclaiming is carried out. Genuine authority realizes that it can exist only in the service of Him who alone has authority. (Mt 23:8) Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word.”

How’s your ministry of being heard/listening? Being helped/helping others? Borne with/bearing with others? Taught/teaching others with spiritual authority?

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This raised a controversial question for me: How should the gospel of Jesus be shared with the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender (GLBT) community? Should we care? Is it even possible? The GLBT community is a political hot button and a divisive issue for Christians, to say the least. However, based on my reading and discussions this past week, I would like to share some of the ideas that I have discovered.

Here are two ways Christians shared with me about how to preach the gospel to homosexuals:

First way: GLBT people are condemned to hell. I asked one of my Christian friends how he would share the gospel if he was invited to a GLBT convention some day. His response was that he would tell them they are all going to hell because they are homosexual.

Seond way: GLBT can be saved if they become heterosexual. Other Christians told me that the gospel can be preached to the GLBT community, but they could only find salvation if they repented of their sin of being GLB or T.

I reject both methods above, personally. I also personally reject a lot of the thinking behind those methods. As I formulate my answer, I would like to hear from our ubfriends community your thoughts on this question. I found this topic to be a highly challenging and thought-provoking way to clarify my understanding of the gospel we all claim to love and preach.

I am uncomfortable with both extremes. Churches seem to be either celebrating homosexuals or condemning them to hell.

1. Is there a better way to share the gospel?
2. How would you preach the gospel at a GLBT convention?

If you can get past your phobias and thoughtfully consider these questions, I think you will find your Christian beliefs challenged and clarified.

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A Christian’s “wish dream” destroys Christian community

Confess Your Sins to Each Other

The Gospel Expects Sinners to Come Forth. God came to save sinners. No one can hide anything from God. “The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are. He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner.” All sham must end in the presence of Christ. The misery of the sinner and the mercy of God must be clearly manifested in community and fellowship with one another.

In Confession Break-Through to Community Takes Place. “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. Sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. The expressed acknowledged sin (loses) all its power. It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder. The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham; the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ”

In Confession Break-Through to the Cross Occurs. “The root of all sin is pride. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride. To stand there before a brother as a sinner is an ignominy that is almost unbearable. In the confession of concrete sins the old man dies a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother. Because the humiliations is so hard we continually scheme to evade confessing to a brother. In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother–which means, before God–we experience the Cross of Jesus as our rescue and salvation.”

In Confession Break-Through to New Life Occurs. “Where sin is hated, admitted, and forgiven, there the break with the past is made. Where there is a break with sin, there is conversion. Confession is conversion. Confession is discipleship. Life with Jesus and his community has begun. In confession the Christian begins to forsake his sins. Their dominion is broken. From now on the Christian wins victory after victory.” Prov 28:13 says, “Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

In Confession a Man Breaks Through to Certainty. Why is it often easier to confess our sins to God than to a brother who is sinful as we are? If we find this so, might we just be deceiving ourselves and confessing our sins to ourselves and absolving ourselves? Might this be why we relapse to our besetting sins so easily and disobey God so easily? “Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin.” How can we be certain that when we confess our sins our sins are forgiven? “God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought into the light. It is a mercy that we can confess our sins to a brother. As the open confession of my sins to a brother insures me against self-deception, so, too, the assurance of forgiveness becomes fully certain to me only when it is spoken by a brother in the name of God.”

Confession Should Deal with Concrete Sins. Otherwise, one might still remain in the dark if they simply make a general confession. “Jesus dealt with people whose sins were obvious. They knew why they needed forgiveness, and they received it as forgiveness of their specific sins.” To Luther, the Christian life was unthinkable without mutual, brotherly confession.

Confess To Whom? Only the brother under the cross. “The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus.” Why? Because “the greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. It does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner.”

The Danger of the One Who Hears Confession. “This will give rise to the disastrous misuse of the confessional for the exercise of spiritual domination of souls.” What can he do? To not succumb to this sinister danger “every person should refrain from listening to confession who does not himself practice it. Only the person who has so humbled himself can hear a brother’s confession without harm.”

The Danger of the Confessant. He must “guard against ever making a pious work of his confession. If he does so, it will become the final, most abominable, vicious, and impure prostitution of the heart; the act becomes an idle, lustful babbling. Confession as a pious work is an invention of the devil. It is only God’s offer of grace, help, and forgiveness that could make us dare to enter the abyss of confession. We can confess solely for the sake of the promise of absolution. Confession as a routine duty is spiritual death; confession in reliance upon the promise is life.”

Confession of sins could become a Christian show of piety. Has confession of sin become routine, habitual, expected, guilt-driven? Has “too pious” of a fellowship not encouraged true confession of sin? Does your Christian community confess concrete sins to each other, resulting in an authentic community?

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His friend was ruthlessly brutal with him, yet tenderly vulnerable toward him. We human beings need such a friend. The richness and quality of our lives (and church community) is dependent on and proportional to the richness and quality of the friendships that we have, or fail to have. I am such a happy man simply because I know that Jesus loves me and that my wife loves me. Nothing else in all creation can add or subtract from this. Yet, I still do need friendships, like the one Armstrong describes. It is akin to the friendship of Jonathan and David (2 Sam 1:26). We need a friend who can speak the truth to us in love (Eph 4:15), whose conversations are full of grace and yet seasoned with salt (Col 4:6).

I need to listen to those who will speak the truth to me. Samuel Lee was such a friend and mentor to me for 2 decades of my Christian life. I also need to learn how to be a seemingly ruthless yet vulnerable friend to others. It is easy for me to practice the former, but not the latter, which will happen only when Jesus’ friendship with me breaks my own heart (Jn 15:15).

How is your friendship with Jesus? How is your friendship with others? How have others been friends to you?

Some time markers:

• 04:50 Reading of Jn 15:9-17
• 09:25 The word “friend” jumps out in our text. Levels of friendship.
• 10:40 Mentoring by friendship, mutuality, not authority.
• 12:50 Armstrong’s story of an intimate, deep, close life long friendship.
• 26:00 Love is all inclusive: family, neighbor, enemy.
• 29:50 Love always includes others; it is never private. Unity and diversity.
• 35:00 Friendship allows one into the heart of the one who is planning.
• 36:40 Ask yourself: Am I a friend of Jesus?
• 37:00 A friend of Jesus does what he commands because of love.
• 37:15 A friend understands that Jesus is the revelation and plan of God’s heart.
• 37:45 A friend of Jesus is grounded in his choice of us (Jn 15:16).
• 38:50 We are chosen to bear fruit.
• 42:10 Live out God’s love. Muslim converted when he saw how Christians lived.
• 44:10 Do you experience the life of intimacy of friendship with God?

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“Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years…” (21). “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate” (30). “…the human element always insinuates itself and robs the fellowship of its spiritual power and effectiveness for the Church” (37).

What is a Christian? “The Christian seeks his salvation, deliverance, justification in Christ alone. He knows that God’s Word in Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God’s Word in Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all. If somebody asks him, Where is your salvation, your righteousness? he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Christ, which assures him salvation and righteousness. In himself he is destitute and dead. Help must come … daily and anew in the Word of Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness” (22). This is what a Christian is–what it means to be in Christ.

Christians need community. “When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure” (23). True Christian community happens in Christ.

Strive, discord and ego. “Among men there is strife. Without Christ there is discord between God and man and between man and man. Without Christ we would not know our brother, nor could we come to him. The way is blocked by our own ego. Only in Jesus Christ are we one (Eph 2:14), only through him are we bound together.”

We can truly give only when we have truly received. When Jesus took on flesh in the incarnation, he truly took on, out of pure grace, our nature. This is how God relates to us, how He won our hearts by His love. “When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with our brethren. When we received forgiveness instead of judgment, we, too, were made ready to forgive our brethren. 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 (Rom 15:7; 1 Th 4:9-10). Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us” (25).

However, 2 things threaten true Christian community: Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality; Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a human reality.

Not an Ideal, but a Divine Reality

What Bonhoeffer writes here perfectly describes all failed Christian community exactly and precisely. It’s hard to improve on what he wrote.

Idealism does not work. Because of our own ideals and ideas about Christian life together, great disillusionment soon sets in “with others, with Christians in general, and if we are fortunate, with ourselves. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight… The sooner this shock or disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. 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. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren… He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren…and finally the despairing accuser of himself” (27).

Disillusionment is good. “Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? 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 Christ? The very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only that one Word and Deed which really binds us together. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship” (29).

To pastors: Don’t accuse your people. “This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. …he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God; and if this be the case, let him thank God for leading him into this predicament” (29,30).

A Spiritual not a Human Reality

Even devout men cannot cultivate a spiritual community. “The community of the Spirit is the fellowship of those who are called by Christ; human community is the fellowship of devout souls. In the community of the Spirit the Word of God alone rules; in human community there rules, along with the Word, the man who is furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities. There 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; here spheres of power and influence of a personal nature are sought and cultivated. …devout men…do this with the intention of serving the highest and the best, but in actuality the result is to dethrone the Holy Spirit, to relegate Him to remote unreality. In actuality, it is only the human that is operative here” (32).

Where a superior power rules, spirituality fails. “Here is where the humanly strong person is in his element, securing for himself the admiration, the love, or the fear of the weak. Here human ties, suggestions, and bonds are everything. …human absorption appears wherever the superior power of one person is consciously or unconsciously misused to influence profoundly and draw into his spell another individual or a whole community. Here one soul operates directly upon another soul. 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…his conversion was effected, not by the Holy Spirit, but by a man, and therefore has no stability” (33).

The idolatry of human love. “Human love…makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person. Human love desires…it continues to desire even when it seems to be serving. Human love cannot tolerate the dissolution of a fellowship that has become false…and human love cannot love an enemy. Human love is by its very nature desire–desire for human community. Where it can no longer expect its desire to be fulfilled…it turns into hatred, contempt, and calumny. Human love creates of itself an end, an idol which it worships, to which it must subject everything. It nurses and cultivates an ideal. Spiritual love, however, comes from Jesus, it serves him alone; it knows that it has no immediate access to other persons” (35).

Spiritual love releases to Christ. “Spiritual love will not seek to move others by all too personal, direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another. It will not take pleasure in pious, human fervor and excitement. It will 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 will respect the line that has been drawn between him and us…it will find full fellowship with him in the Christ who alone binds us together. Spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ (3 John 4)” (36,37).

The greatest danger to Christian community. “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 part of the one, holy, catholic, Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles and promise of the whole Church. Every principle of selection and every separation connected with it…is of the greatest danger to a Christian community. …the human element always insinuates itself and robs the fellowship of its spiritual power and effectiveness for the Church, drives it into sectarianism” (37)

I wanted to write an exhaustive reflection, but Bonhoeffer’s words seem “far too perfect” to add to or to subtract from.

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Jail, Judgment and Hell. When I went to the jail to visit him, I saw the secure high walls, countless security measures and armed policemen. It was a gloomy, depressing and hellish atmosphere. It made my already heavy heart heavier. Despite prison breaks in movies, the reality and likelihood of breaking out of jail is virtually nil. I felt very sorry that if he is found guilty, he would spend significant time in jail in the prime of his life. It made me think of the finality of hell for those who fall on the wrong side of God’s judgment on the Final Day.

Jail is Temporary, but Hell is Permanent and Forever. Going to the jail just to visit was extremely depressing. There is a strong feel of gloom, doom, wrath and judgment. It is surely a deterrent. As unpleasant as jail is, hell would be infinitely worse. To speculate and contemplate on the finality and eternality of hell was extremely sobering. It is good for my soul. It brought to the forefront of my heart and mind the utmost importance of missions and for reaching the lost and equipping the saved. It prompted me to pray for those I know and love who do not know the assurance of eternal life through Christ.

Brokenness and Sorrow. Most of all, I felt so broken-hearted for him. This is not at all to minimize the unspeakable and inexcusable trauma caused to the woman he allegedly sexually assaulted. She is the victim. He is responsible for that. If found guilty, an adequate judgment needs to be pronounced. But knowing the dysfunctional details of his life through 2 years of Bible study and friendship, I know that he too is a victim. He works out regularly and carries himself with a tough exterior. But seeing him in jail, his toughness was completely gone. He was softened and humbled. For the first time he thanked me for studying the Bible with him, and for being a father figure to him. I pray for him that through this event, Jesus may be the Joy, Treasure and Delight of his heart (Ps 37:4).

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In my experience, among the worst things that I have heard repeatedly is when an older leader labels someone else in the church whom he thinks is out of line. Maybe you have heard this too. The leader says about someone else: “He’s proud.” “He’s immature.” “He’s childish.” “He’s selfish.” “He’s untrained.” “He’s lazy.” “He’s worldly.” Now you can add “He’s a Judas.” Whenever I hear these statements, my thought is, “Do you look at the mirror and ever wonder if any of this applies to you as well?” I would call out anyone who calls himself a Christian leader and who dares to say this about someone else. I am pro-church discipline. But this categorization and caricature of others is without question an unhealthy, un-Christian form of leadership. It reeks of a lack of all the major Christian attributes of love, mercy, grace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, self-control (1 Cor 13:4-7; Gal 5:22-23).

As long as we are in the church, we will experience good and bad forms of leadership practiced by our leaders or by ourselves. See my articles on Spiritual Abuse and Spiritual Bullying. When I started writing those 2 blogs, I wanted to address spiritual abuse in UBF, but instead found myself under my own indictment! Dave Kraft, in his book, Leaders Who Last, wrote, “As a (Christian) leader, everything I am and everything I do needs to be anchored in my identity with Christ. Leadership begins and ends with a clear understanding of the gospel and being rooted in the grace of Jesus Christ as a free gift.”

All things to a Christian, is a free gift of grace, including leadership. Christian leadership never gives the leader any advantage or superiority over his members. Christian leadership must communicate Jesus, who is full of grace and truth. Jesus did not use his leadership for political maneuvering, controlling his disciples, coercing them, or forcing them to do what they should (Mk 10:42-44). Jesus loved them and died for them. Jesus was full of grace toward them, never treating them (and us!) as their (our) sins deserve (Ps 103:10). The disciples did not understand Jesus when he was alive. But when he died, they would follow him unto death, even though no one told them to.

What is your experience of Christian leadership?

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When I heard Duncan’s sermon, I was surprised at what I had not realized about this narrative, about Elijah and about God. I did not realize Elijah’s failure at the close of his glorious ministry, Elijah’s idolatry, and God’s gracious dealing with him.

1. Elijah’s Fear is Unbelief (1 Ki 19:1-3)

In fear, Elijah ran for his life (1 Ki 19:1). I assumed this was “reasonable,” since he was exhausted, he experienced a let down, and he was threatened by a powerful godless queen (1 Ki 19:2). But he had just experienced the almighty supernatural power of God and killed 450 false prophets. Yet the very next day, he did not believe in the Almighty God he had just proclaimed, and ran for his life (1 Ki 19:3). As a result God asked him twice, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Ki 19:9,13) Clearly God was not pleased with Elijah. What caused Elijah’s unbelief?

2. Elijah’s Unbelief is Rooted in His Idolatry (1 Ki 19:10,14)

What? How could this be? I had never thought that Elijah, a truly great prophet of God, could ever succumb to idolatry. Elijah had boldly preached against his nation’s idolatry throughout his ministry. How could he have given in to the idolatry he preached against? Elijah had 1 single desire as God’s prophet: To see his nation worship God, not idols. When he experienced the spectacular destruction of Baal worship, he expected his nation to turn back to God. But they continued to reject God’s covenant, tear down God’s alters, and kill God’s prophets (1 Ki 19:10,14), and Queen Jezebel promised to kill him. His treasure was not in God, but in what he had hoped God would do. This is noble. It is also idolatry.

3. Elijah Refused to See God’s Glory (1 Ki 19:11-13)

I had not noticed this before. When God asked Elijah to to go out from the cave he was in and stand on the mountain (1 Ki 19:11), he did not do so even though there was a whirlwind, earthquake and fire. Only when God spoke in a gentle whisper, did Elijah go out, and then with a cloak over his face (1 Ki 19:13). He apparently was so discouraged and disappointed that he could not bear to behold God’s glory.

4. God Retired Elijah, yet God was Gracious

I also had not realized the depth of God’s grace and goodness toward Elijah when I read and studied this passage in the past. Elijah’s disappointment exposed his idolatry of expecting a great spiritual revival through his ministry. But God wanted to give Elijah something better: Himself. Elijah fled and wished that he would die. God then shelved him. The only ministry left for him for the rest of his life was to prepare the way for his successor Elisha to do the job (1 Ki 19:15-16). Elijah’s ministry was essentially over. It didn’t end well for him. Elijah has all but had his day. God retired Elijah, as God had refused Moses entry into the promised land after 40 years of hard service when he was at the very edge of the promised land. God dealt with his chosen servants relentlessly and “harshly,” not to hurt them, but to give them the very best gift of Himself (Gen 15:1).

Despite Elijah’s failure and his refusal to see God’s glory on the mountain, God took him up to heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Ki 2:11). It gets better. Centuries later, God sent Elijah up a mountain again. What did God want Elijah to see? The glorious transfigured image of Jesus (Lk 9:29-30). God wanted Elijah to behold “the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). Does it all make sense now? What is the lesson for us?

It is a costly and brutal lesson. God ruthlessly and emphatically pursued Elijah’s fundamental idolatry and ripped it from his heart and crushed it. God was essentially saying, “I’m enough for you, Elijah. I’m the only treasure worth having and I’m the only treasure that can’t be taken away from you.”

My personal testimony is this: I need Jesus only, not Jesus plus a glorious fruitful discipleship ministry, which can so easily become an idolatry to me. Yet, despite all my sins and idolatry, God is gracious to relentlessly pursue me, in spite of me. This is the gospel of God’s grace. Perhaps, I’ve stirred your curiosity enough to listen to this glorious sermon.

Have you thought of 1 Kings 19:1-18 in this way before? Do you agree? Is not idolatry at the very root of our sin (Ex 20:3-4), even for the very best of God’s prophets?

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