The Purpose of the Ten Commandments

"The calling [of the Christian] is the call of Jesus Christ to belong wholly to Him; it is the laying claim to me by Christ at the place at which this call found me; it embraces work with things and relations with persons; it demands 'a limited field of accomplishments' yet never as a value in itself, but in responsibility towards Jesus Christ."

"Now a man takes up his position against the world in the world, the calling is the place at which the call of Christ is answered, the place at which a man lives responsibly."

"The purpose of the commandment lies not in the avoidance of transgression, and not in the torment of ethical conflict and decision, but in freely accepted, self-evident life in the Church, in marriage, in family, in work and in the state."

"... the commandment fixes the boundaries and creates the space within which it can be heard and fulfilled".

"The self-tormenting and hopeless question regarding the purity of one's motives, the suspicious observation of oneself, the glaring and fatiguing light of incessant consciousness, all these have nothing to do with the commandment of God, who grants liberty to live and to act."

"[For the Christian] God's commandment is the only warrant for ethical discourse. God's commandment is the speech of God to man."

"The commandment of God permits man to live as man before God."

The above then, gives content to what Christ meant when he said: "For indeed,the kingdom of God is within you" Luke 17:21.

All quotations are from Ethics, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pages 252, 272-73, 279-80.

I'll be back soon

I've been away for awhile but I'll be posting again soon.

Discipleship To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes, it is not an accident, but a necessity. It is not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from this mortal life, but the suffering which is an essential part of the specifically Christian life. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The Cost of Discipleship

Grace and Sin

"Grace is in God, and sin is in man. The Grace of God is not a substance, a manna-like powder, which is mediated to men through human acts. Grace is always in God's action; it is the action of reconciliation that reaches out across the no-man's land of the historic war of men against God. All human action,all culture, is infected with godlessness, which is the essence of sin. Godlessness appears as the will to live without God, to ignore him to be independent and secure in one's self, to be godlike in oneself. It has a complacency of the self-righteously moral and of self-authenticated rational men, but also the despair of those for whom all is vanity." H.Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture

Progress?

From “Faust” part I: “There they sit, with eyes raised, and calmly wait to be astounded.” “man will stray as long as he strives”

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
Lord Keynes

John 4:21-24
New King James Version (NKJV)

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

"This is worship not tied to holy places but impacted by a holy person, who through his cross will inaugurate the era in which the Holy Spirit will change everything. One proposition governs "in Spirit and Truth." We do not have a catalog of two features here, but one inseparable concept. This is worship empowered by God but also informed by the revelation of God and provided to humans by the One who is the Truth, Jesus Christ." source unknown.