"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, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
In this wise does one, whom God has placed in common life with other Christians, learn what it means to have brothers. 'Brethren in the Lord,' Paul calls his congregation (Philippians 1:14). I am a brother to another person through what Jesus Christ did for me and to me; the other person has become a brother to me through what Jesus Christ did for him.
The fact that we are brethren only through Jesus Christ is of immeasurable significance.
Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community. What determines our brotherhood is what the man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us.
The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity. "
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
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1 comment:
Good quote, Joe. Check out this article - http://blog.9marks.org/2008/07/individualism-i.html
Dan
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