{"id":442,"date":"2011-06-10T17:33:52","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T21:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/euangelion\/?p=442"},"modified":"2011-06-10T17:33:52","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T21:33:52","slug":"nachfolge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2011\/06\/nachfolge\/","title":{"rendered":"Nachfolge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Nachfolge <\/em>is the German word \u201cdiscipleship\u201d. This summer I started a theology reading group with CRAVE<\/a>, the college ministry that I lead as pastor at Christ Community Church. I decided to offer a theology reading group this summer because I\u2019m committed to the idea that the church should encourage and engage in theological inquiry. As one of the stu\"\"<\/a>dents said, when asked at our first meeting why did he want to participate, \u201cI want to love God with my mind!\u201d Amen. I want to be around deeply devoted believers who pursue loving God with their minds. I think this is one of the more fun (perhaps most fun) elements of my pastoral ministry.<\/p>\n

For the reading group I chose Dietrich Bonhoeffer\u2019s Nachfolge<\/em> (\u201cDiscipleship\u201d, known in earlier English editions as The Cost of Discipleship<\/em>) because right now I\u2019m obsessed with him. Over the spring I read Eric Metaxas\u2019 biography and am now in the middle of a much briefer and perhaps more scholarly biography by Schlingensiepen (try to pronounce that German name 10 times!). I also purchased the 1000-page authoritative biography of Eberhard Bethge but will likely not read it any time soon. I left my friend Joel Lawrence (Bethel Seminary) a voicemail recently telling him how envious I was that he did his Ph.D. thesis on Bonheoffer. How lucky was that?!\"\"<\/a> By the way, Joel has a great little book on Bonhoeffer\u2019s thought called\u00a0 Bonhoeffer: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides For The Perplexed)<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\"\".<\/p>\n

I will undoubtedly post numerous times on my reflections from Nachfolge<\/em>. Here I want to say how powerful\u00a0 it is to work through the German edition of the book. I am always in need of practicing German reading so I\u2019m taking the opportunity to read the German with the Fortress English edition next to me. What a thrill! I\u2019ve spend much of my time reading academic things in German so it is such a privilege to read a spiritual classic like this in its original tongue. While its not inspired Scripture, it is a similar experience of reading what Bonhoeffer wrote and not simply the translator\u2019s rendering. For me this takes about a half-to-three quarters more time, than it would if I just read the English; but its worth it.<\/p>\n

The famous line many know: \u201cand because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God\u201d in German is:<\/p>\n

und weil uns nicht billig sein kann, was Gott teuer ist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Have you ever read The Cost of Discipleship<\/em>? What has this book meant to you? Where would you rank it as a spiritual classic?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nachfolge is the German word \u201cdiscipleship\u201d. This summer I started a theology reading group with CRAVE, the college ministry that I lead as pastor at Christ Community Church. I decided to offer a theology reading group this summer because I\u2019m committed to the idea that the church should encourage and engage in theological inquiry. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNachfolge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nachfolge is the German word "discipleship". 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