"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. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it."
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Source: Life Together, ch. 1 "Community" (tr. John W. Doberstein, 1954)
Calling, co-workers
Views: 533
"Thus in ourselves we are sinners, and yet, through God's reckoning, we are righteous by faith. … Is he then perfectly righteous? No; he is at the same time a sinner and righteous: a sinner in fact, but righteous by God's reckoning and sure promise that He will free him from sin until He has healed him completely."
— Martin Luther
Source: Lectures on Romans (1515–16), scholion on Rom. 4:7 (translated from the Latin)
sinner, righteous person
Views: 544
"Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) was a founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, in 1962, and served that one congregation for 29 years before retiring in 1991. In 1980 he published A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society, picturing the Christian life as a long obedience in one direction."
— Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia, "Eugene H. Peterson" (citing The New York Times obituary, 2018)
Joy accumulates slowly.
Views: 507
"God made you without you. For you gave no consent that God should make you; how could you consent when you did not exist? So He who made you without you does not justify you without you. He made you without your knowing; He justifies you with your willing. Yet it is He who justifies, lest the righteousness be your own."
— Augustine
Source: Sermon 169.11.13 (translated from the Latin, PL 38)
Salvation, Response
Views: 588
"The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light. "His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5.3). The commandment of Jesus is not a sort of spiritual shock treatment. Jesus asks nothing of us without giving us the strength to perform it. His commandment never seeks to destroy life, but to foster, strengthen and heal it."
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Source: The Cost of Discipleship, Preface (tr. R. H. Fuller)
Follow, obey, freedom
Views: 560
"Scripture lays down no absolute standards. On the one hand, it gives no encouragement to an austere and negative asceticism, for it does not forbid the possession of private property (Acts 5:4), and it commands us to enjoy with gratitude the good gifts of our Creator (e.g., I Tim. 4:1-5; 6:17). … Every Christian should be content with the necessities of life (I Tim. 6:6-8), but every Christian must make his own conscientious decision before God where he draws the line between necessities and luxuries."
— John Stott
Source: The Lausanne Covenant: An Exposition and Commentary (Lausanne Occasional Paper 3, 1975), on paragraph 9