Drew

“Leaning on Augustine’s insight, Bonhoeffer sees the sanctorum communio as “the community of loving persons who, touched by God’s Spirit, radiate love and grace.”17”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“We could summarize all of this background to Bonhoeffer’s christology in one sentence, albeit a complex one: The cross was a stumbling block to the Romans; the cross was a stumbling block to the Nazis; the cross was a stumbling block to moderns; and—unless we are humbled and brought low beneath the cross to see its power and beauty—the cross can be a stumbling block to us.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“The church is the real thing when it is not consumed with the assertion of power in culture, but it is driven by service to others. The word ministry translates the Greek word diakonia, which means service. The church must be about serving others. When a church can lay claim to all three criteria, namely, preaching of the Word, being true to its confession, and focusing on serving, then it’s a church worth going to. And then it’s a church full of sermons worth listening to.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Christ’s passivity in his resurrection reflects his identification and solidarity with believers in being raised from the dead. For Paul—certainly not in conflict with, but other than, the way it is often understood—the resurrection is not the especially evident display and powerful proof of Christ’s divinity, but rather the vindication of the incarnate Christ in his suffering and obedience unto death, and with that vindication, the powerful transformation of him in his humanity. In the terms of Romans 1:4, by virtue of the resurrection he is now, comparatively, what he was not previously, “the Son of God in power.”54”
― Richard B. Jr. Gaffin, By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation