From John Stott's Commentary on Romans 1

Six fundamental truths about the gospel:

Its origin is God the Father

Its substance Jesus Christ the Son.

Its attestation is Old Testament Scripture

And its scope all the nations.

Our immediate purpose  in proclaiming it is to bring people to the obedience of faith

But our ultimate goal is the greater glory of the name of Jesus Christ.

The good news is the gospel of God, about Christ, according to the Scripture for the nations unto the obedience of faith for the sake of the Name.

Bonhoeffer cont.

We must consider the spiritual nature of the church. “God established the reality of the church, of humankind pardoned in Jesus Christ.” This is the church-humankind pardoned in Jesus Christ, or the communion of the saints, the redeemed ones. The disciples did not establish this, though they did establish much about the Christian church. But the death and resurrection of Christ is the only thing that made it so that there could be this communion of the redeemed. There would be no redeemed humans without Christ. And the systems and structures we have put in place support that but the cornerstone, as Paul says, is Jesus Christ.

Bonheoffer beautifully describes a dual existence of the church. It is consummated in Him (Christ) and time is annulled. It is also within time and built upon Him as the foundation. JUST as believers are both already perfect and still sinners.

The Kingdom of God, in fact, is to us a future hope, but to God, for whom there is no time, it is a reality-it always has been and always will be.

Bonheoffer is wise to remind us of another humbling fact-the work of prayer the church is called to. How quick I am to put everything before prayer-ministries and programs and teachings…but prayer is the means by which we proclaim that we are indeed an instrument of Gods will. “The devil fears the church at prayer.”

“The proper place of the church is Christ present in the world.”

May we dwell on this for a minute? The church is the place where Christ is present in the world. First and foremost, we must protect the church as such and not make it out to be anything else-in social work, the church is often made to be a community organizer or instrument of social justice-no, the church holds its own place and that is the place where Christ is present in this world. At the same time, all that Christ is, we must be. We cannot leave out any portion of the manifestation of Christ. We shall be no more than the place of Christ present, but we shall also be no less than the place of Christ present.

How do we know what it is to be “Christ present here”?

“The church lives by God’s word alone.” We know by Gods word, which reveals to us all that we need to know of Christ.

“No religious services should be without the confession of faith. The community must either confess its faith or disavow it. It cannot, like the general public, remain undecided.” Absolutely beautiful. No one is halfway in the community. If you confess the faith, you are all in, if you do not, you are not. Not because of exclusivity-because it is the SOLE condition for membership. If there is no condition for membership, nothing to separate membership from non-membership there would be no such thing as membership at all. There has to be a condition.

Indecisiveness is not an option. All in or all out.

Now, what exactly is this “Confession of faith?”

Bonheoffer puts it: ”I acknowledge and confess your truth, O God.”

“Your truth” refers to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the Word of Scripture and to a deep faith that He is real, that He is good, that He has sent His Son to die for our sin and that His Son did rise and does rule and is our salvation, our life, our glory, our All.

“The Word must be preserved as the most sacred possession of the community.”

The Word is the churches most sacred possession. It is what we have that can be found nowhere else in the entire world.

The Word needs to most protection because it is the most precious thing.

The Wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Church

Some men just blaze history with the fire of the gospel in them.

With their giftedness and compassion and most of all their deep, hard love of their Savior. It is a joy to sit and savor the thoughts and words of those men, as a means to savor Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of those men.

Spending three hours in Barnes and noble today with “A Testament to Freedom” and a latte, I was able to take away just a bit of the beauty of the church that I had never quite grasped before. I would love to highlight a few of his thoughts for deeper meditation. (Anything that is his is in quotes…hopefully I got it all quoted, if it sounds amazing, it was probably his not mine).

First, “Just as the Holy Spirit is with the individual, so Christ makes himself present with the body of saints.”

So as the Holy Spirit is to the individual, to you or I, Christ is to the entire church. He is the manifestation of God in the church just as the Spirit lives in our own bodies.

Furthermore, “He is only present in the church where the brothers and sisters are united for brotherly loving through preaching of the word and communion”

This is where he dwells in the world. Not every equally but specifically in His church. This highlights the necessity of bringing non-christians into the church if they are to meet Christ. How humbling this is, as I often think that they will meet my savior just by me entering into their spaces-but no, the Savior is manifested in the collective church, and it is not a surprise that the body as one is a clearer vision of Him who is our Head then me as individual.

May we bring them in and may we protect and honor the Bride where He is manifested in this world. It is of utmost importance.

(So I wrote about 4 pages from what I learned, but no one likes to read long things so I'll post in stages :))

With love, Krystal