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Seeking the Ideal church...or convention?

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by 12strings, Aug 23, 2012.

  1. 12strings

    12strings Active Member

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    (The following is a series of quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book LIFE TOGETHER, which I have just started reading...these are from a section entitled: "Not an Ideal but a Divine Reality")

    “Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, sat down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

    “…The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community, the better for both. …He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter…

    “The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God."

    “…A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him so that he should become its accuser before God and men.

    "Because god has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ...we enter into that common life into as demanders but as thankful recipients."
     
  2. 12strings

    12strings Active Member

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    And a bit more...

    "Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Christ Jesus? Thus, the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by the one Word and Deed which really binds us together--the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship . . ."
     
  3. Mexdeaf

    Mexdeaf New Member

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    It is a good book.
     
  4. ktn4eg

    ktn4eg New Member

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    Well, IMHO, if any of you out there in BB land are like me..... and should happen to find the ideal church, I wouldn't dare want to join it......



    Sure as shootin'...........



    ...........We'd find some way to mess it up 'n' right good!!! :smilewinkgrin::tongue3::tear:
     
  5. Tom Butler

    Tom Butler New Member

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    Durn tootin'.

    To put it another way, if you find the perfect church, don't join, because it won't be perfect any more.
     
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