Posted on 09/11/2014 7:50:13 AM PDT by rhema
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together:
Whoever lives beneath the cross of Jesus, and has discerned in the cross of Jesus the utter ungodliness of all people and of their own hearts, will find there is no sin that can ever be unfamiliar.
Whoever has once been appalled by the horror of their own sin, which nailed Jesus to the cross, will no longer be appalled by even the most serious sin of another Christian; rather they know the human heart from the cross of Jesus.
Such persons know how totally lost is the human heart in sin and weakness, how it goes astray in the ways of sin—and know too that this same heart is accepted in grace and mercy.
Only another Christian who is under the cross can hear my confession. It is not experience with life but experience of the cross that makes one suited to hear confession. The most experienced judge of character knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Jesus.
The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot comprehend this one thing: what sin is. Psychological wisdom knows what need and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the ugliness of the human being. And so it also does not know that human beings are ruined only by their sin and are healed only by forgiveness. The Christian alone knows this. In the presence of a psychologist I can only be sick; in the presence of another Christian I can be a sinner.
The psychologist must first search my heart, and yet can never probe its innermost recesses. Another Christian recognizes just this: here comes a sinner like myself, a godless person who wants to confess and longs for God’s forgiveness.
The psychologist views me as if there were no God. Another believer views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the cross of Jesus Christ.
When we are so pitiful and incapable of hearing the confession of one another, it is not due to a lack of psychological knowledge, but a lack of love for the crucified Jesus Christ.
Faith of this kind is much easier practiced within church and family, and even then it is difficult. How much more difficult when out in the world, which considers such thoughts to be pure folly.
I was about to ask what that picture of Christoph von Dohnányi was doing there until I saw your caption. So his mother’s brother was Bonhoeffer? Interesting.
Yes and his father Hans von Dohnányi was a German resistance fighter who was also executed by the Nazis.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the great heroes of our times.
How many psych studies are flawed because their premise was flawed? Why do studies and statistics use people as the norm when Christ should be the norm?
Why do studies and statistics use people as the norm when Christ should be the norm?
<><><><
Kind of an odd question, given that the therapies devised will be applied to people, not Christ.
Just thinking about the bell curve. Trying to get people to be like what the average person should be like but we are to be like Christ. That’s all. Just wondering if we aren’t missing a lot because of that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.