Living Together - Week #2

Thanks for the input from some of you! The Lord bless you this week...

I have two main comments on the first part of chapter two, in which Bonhoeffer deals with corporate praying and worshiping, etc.

The first comment is that I was excited to read Bonhoeffer's citing of Oetinger's exposition of the Psalms, because it confirmed what the Holy Spirit made real to me during a month of silence and solitude I had this past January. During that time I chose the Psalms as the part of Scripture to spend my month in, and the reason I did was that I wanted to know more about Jesus' prayer life. Well, I had remembered reading a couple of authors who said that the Psalms was probably Jesus' prayer book and the means by which He learned to pray. As I thought on that, it hit me that if that was the case and if Jesus' response to His disciples' desire to learn to pray (Luke 11:1) was the "Lord's Prayer", then it seemed obvious to me that what we call "the Lord's Prayer" would be a summary of the prayers of the Psalms! That's what led me to devote my month-long sabbatical to the book of the Psalms...

So I was delighted to read this from Bonhoeffer as he spoke about Oetinger's study of the Psalms:
"...The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word...What he (Oetinger) had discerned was that the whole sweep of the Book of Psalms was concerned with nothing more nor less than the brief petitions of the Lord's Prayer."

In light of what I'm discovering in the Psalms now that I see them in this light, I heartily recommend the reading/praying of the Psalms with the understanding that they are first of all about Jesus, but that they can, of course, apply to us who are in Him too. It's really fun to read them with Jesus in mind...(a beautiful book that highlights this is Patrick Reardon's book, Christ in the Psalms.)

The other observation I'd like to make from this chapter is his words about "singing the new song." This is something the Holy Spirit is awakening now more than ever, and we're starting to teach our missionary trainees at Bethany more about singing the Scriptures so that the truth penetrates their inner being more effectively. As I am practicing singing to the Lord spontaneously, I'm finding my heart more and more unlocked, and it actually has a healing effect on my mind so that my brain is functioning better. The beauty of this is that the Lord loves our songs to Him whether we have a lovely voice (as men judge) or not!

Lord Jesus, we want to see Your beauty...thank you for the means of grace that you give us weak humans to experience you in truth. Holy Spirit, You Who love Jesus best, show Him to us in our simple and fumbling spiritual disciplines so that we live and move in Him with open and tender hearts. We love You, Lord!

For next week, we'll continue and finish chapter two, ok? Blessings on you!