THOROUGHLY EQUIPPED BY THE WORD

The German theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was one of the great Christian martyrs of the 20th Century. He stood for Christ and against the evil of Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany, and he paid with his life. Adolph Hitler hated and feared Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Where did Bonhoeffer find the strength and courage to stand against evil so courageously?

I think I know. He got his strength from the Word of God. In 1936, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote his brother-in-law who was as liberal theologically as Bonhoeffer was conservative. Bonheoffer poured out his heart about the Bible to his brother-in-law in this letter.

Bonheoffer wrote: First of all I will confess quite simply-I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us.

Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc., there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, "pondering them in our heart," so it will be with the words of the Bible.

Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible .... And I would tell you now quite personally, since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way - and this has not been for so very long - it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, often during the day as well... I know without this I could not live properly any longer.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

When the Nazi guards came to hang Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he bade good-bye to his fellow prisoners, and then he said, "This is the end. For me it is the beginning of life." The Word of God had thoroughly equipped him for his good work as a faithful martyr of Jesus Christ.