It’s often said that what matters most in the ministry context is “relationships.” This answer is often left dangling.
Ritual and roots bring relationship off the edge of frivolity. Ritual and roots are relationships with trajectory. They give substance and meaning to our relationship; they are the heart and soul of claiming our true identity as a beloved people of God through Jesus.
Meditating on the Word by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Book Reaction)
I picked up this book in hopes for a simple guidance from a trusted source. Like he mentioned of students in a letter to Karl Barth, Bonhoeffer said, “The kind of questions serious young theologians put to us are: ‘How can I learn to pray? How can I learn to read the Bible? Either we can help them do this, or we can’t help them at all.’”
I felt like a young student of Bonhoeffer as I read along, eating up his simple answers.
The little section I resonated most with was written like a short catechism in question and answer.
1.) Why do I meditate?
Because I am a Christian.
Because I am a preacher of the word. I cannot expound on the Scripture for others if I do not let it speak daily to me.
Because I need a firm discipline of prayer. … Prayer is not a free will offering to God; it is an obligatory service, something which he requires. We are not free to engage in it according to our own wishes.
Because I need help against the ungodly haste and unrest which threaten my work as a pastor.
2.) What do I want from my meditation?
We want to meet Christ in his word. We turn to the text in our desire to hear what it is that he wants to give us and teach us today through his Word. Meet him first in the day before you meet other people. Every morning lay upon him everything that preoccupies you and weighs you down, before new burdens are laid upon you. Ask yourself what still hinders you from following him completely and let him take charge of that, before new hindrances are placed in your way.
His fellowship, his help, his guidance for the day through his Word – that is the goal.
3.) How shall I meditate?
[Meditating on Scripture is preferable to free meditation.]
Just as you would not dissect and analyze the word spoken by someone dear to you, but would accept it just as it was said, so you should accept the Word of Scripture and ponder it in your heart as Mary did. Do not look for new thoughts and interconnections in the text as you would a sermon! Do not ask how you should tell it to others, but ask what it tells you! Then ponder this word in your heart at length, until it is entirely within you and has taken possession of you.
This is not the place for the Greek New Testament, but for the familiar Luther text.
We begin our meditations with the prayer for the Holy Spirit, asking for proper concentration for ourselves and for all who we know are also meditating. Then we turn to the text. At the close of the meditation we want to be truly able to say a prayer of thanksgiving from a heart that is full.
What text, and how long should the text be? 10-15 verses and meditate on it over a period of a week. Whatever you do, don’t take the sermon text for the next Sunday!
The time of meditation is in the morning before the beginning of our work. A half hour is the minimum amount of time which a proper meditation requires. It is, of course, necessary that there be complete quiet, and that we intend to allow nothing to divert us, no matter how important it may seem.
4.) How do we overcome the problems of meditation?
The first rule is to not become impatient with yourself. Just sit down again every day and wait very patiently. Incorporate thoughts that come at you into your prayer later on; connect them to the text.
Read the same passage again and again, write down your thoughts, learn the verse by heart. …recognize the danger of fleeing once again from meditation to Bible scholarship and the like. Behind all our uncertainties and needs stands our great need to pray…
On Morning Prayer in Community
Before our daily bread should be the daily Word.
…an hour of quiet time and common devotion.
Although we are often not “in the mood” for it, such devotion is an obligatory serve to the One who desires our praises and prayers, and who will not otherwise bless our day but through His Word and our prayers.
…Grounded in the Scripture, we learn to speak to God in the language which God has spoken to us. We learn to speak to God as the child speaks to its mother.
…Above all, we should read the Psalms together. Then a not-too-modest portion of the Old and New Testaments should be read in series. The songs of the Church will place us in the great congregation of the present and the past. The prayer which one person speaks for the whole fellowship will bring the common concerns of the little congregation before God.
[Quotes, some modified and shortened, but meaning retained, are taken from Meditating on the Word by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 29-41]
I’m reading *Thomas Merton: Twentieth Century Wisdom for Twenty-First Century Living* by Paul Dekar this morning. The phrase, “competence in spiritual theology,” just came up (p.38). I’m pausing to explore how I would define competence in spiritual theology.
Often, competence sounds like the master of many elements and the ability to merge them together into one practice (like a doctor’s ability to know many cures). In spiritual theology, the adverse seems true: competence in spirituality is the mastery of one necessary thing (Luke 10) in order to enter into the many elements of life with the single necessity at the front of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Simply put: competence in the spiritual life is the capacity for a free flowing love of God expressed in prayer and work (or interaction with others and creation). Competence comes as being set free from the rule of anxiety, judgement of others, empty speaking, and other expressions of dead-living.
How do you nurture competence in spiritual theology?
Nurturing true life will always start with Jesus. Our first step in nurturing is to know Jesus; to live, we pursue the person of Jesus as the Gospels introduce him.
The slow introduction to Jesus will find us receiving an invitation to, “Come and follow.” Through obedience (the life lived by grace through faith in the person and works of Jesus), we will find ourselves entering the practice of willing (or seeing) only one necessary thing, which is the true reign and presence of our loving Father who intends to make all things new.
This awakening, which is nurtured only when we’re walking with Jesus and in the likeness of Jesus, will reveal to us our degree of “competence,” or rather, the degree that we truly are awake to the presence and reign of God in the present moment.
Initial Questions:
What is it about David Platt’s writing that allows him to turn, the “Pick up your cross and follow me,” of Jesus’ teachings into a national best seller? (I’m suspicious…) Or, to play the cynic, does he lure people in with an intriguing, difficult message and then deflate the call to follow, or completely toss the message aside?
Kudos to David Platt for sparking a healthy critique of the church; moderate examination is always a sign of health. One thing Follow Me strongly accomplished was encouraging the question, “Is my experience of Christianity the full picture of what Jesus brings?”
Follow Me amplifies this healthy critique from Platt’s earlier nationally resonant book, Radical. In Follow Me, Platt writes to reveal the who and how of “radical” Christian living.
In my reading, I discovered three healthy things and four unhealthy things from Follow Me.
Side Note:
On the point of grace, when writing about the end-goal of grace, I believe Platt misses that grace isn’t about getting us to heaven, but about God bringing his justice into our world to make all things new, including you and me.
“If you and I know and believe that Jesus came to save us from hell for heaven, then we have no choice but to spend our lives on earth making that salvation known.” (p.87)
[There's no doubt that all who rely by grace through faith on the person of Jesus will forever and for always be in the loving presence of God; but there's also no biblical doubt that the goal isn't to "get out" of earth but rather enflesh God's work of justice and mercy as we work and pray, "Your kingdom come…"]
Here are the elements of Follow Me that I felt missed the mark:
Platt’s conclusion, by my deduction, is that when people ask the above, “Isn’t there more…” he says, “No, not really.”
But can you blame him? He’s excelled at drawing people into a large megachurch in Alabama; what Platt does well is getting people to do the normal church thing. Why would he want to critique that legacy and impressive success (by some standards) and say, “I think we’ve missed something…” There’s a lot of risk for him in that.
My final thoughts:
Platt does provide the gift of a great question in Follow Me as he invites people to entertain the thought that discipleship is missing in a lot of the church today. But, I don’t feel Platt’s answers take us in the best direction; while his examples are helpful and sentimental at times, I don’t think we can provide a healthy path of Christian discipleship if our noses aren’t buried in the Gospel stories and from that experience asking with people in our community, “How do we live this life that Jesus came to bring?” …all this of course starts with the gracious embrace of God, which is what Platt tried hard to underscore.
My feel is that this book only makes sense for a comfortable audience who knows little of brokenness on the systemic level and who is numb to identity behind the national capital system and this is sent searching for a greater brand for fulfillment. You don’t read this book in an inner city church for a church study, you’d be ashamed to bring it up, mostly because Platt all but ignores the “good news” of God’s gracious justice which intends to restore all things.
Finally, discipleship and dying to self from Platt felt like a self makeover and augmentation as Platt writes not about the loss of self but the enlargement of self as self discovers through Platt’s book how to become part of the greatness and find fulfillment in the completion of self.
So, where would I point you if I wouldn’t recommend Follow Me?