Bonhoeffer And The Sermon On The Mount

Bonhoeffer to barth september 19 1936 dbwe 14 252 253 emphasis added.

Bonhoeffer and the sermon on the mount. Was this just a general sense based upon familiarity with barth s theology. Sermon on the mount bonhoeffer and discipleship as i was preparing for last sunday s encounter with the beatitudes i read hauerwas commentary on matthew. Dietrich bonhoeffer the cost of discipleship.

He has in fact nothing to add to the commandments of god except this that he keeps them. The main focus of bonhoeffer s interpretation of the sermon on the mount is its relationship to discipleship especially in regards to an unwavering focus on jesus christ. These words eloquently summarise the central message of dietrich bonhoeffer s influential book the cost of discipleship first published in 1937.

As bonhoeffer states in the book in stark fashion when christ calls a man he bids him to come and die for bonhoeffer the sermon on the mount is an invitation to participate in that death daily in order that true life may be found. Now what s really intriguing to me is why bonhoeffer would think in 1934 36 that barth s interpretation of the sermon on the mount was insufficient. The sermon on the mount holds the beatitudes among other notable verses.

This is the fundamental presupposition of the whole sermon on the mount. Lasserre was a deeply committed pacifist and challenged bonhoeffer when he told him his thoughts on the sermon on the mount. There is an important distinction however between these two men as bonhoeffer was a theologian and his approach to the sermon has a wider range than tolstoy s.

Bonhoeffer s interest in the sermon on the mount predated his appointment at the seminary. Bonhoeffer was deeply inspired by the sermon on the mount and he believed that christianity would look and be radically different if believers would just merely live it out. He drew so much from bonhoeffer that i turned back to bonhoeffer s the cost of discipleship.

Another man bonhoeffer met was fellow student jean lasserre. Dietrich bonhoeffer martyr and lutheran pastor is placed in the same school as tolstoy in mcarthur s list of schools of thought on the application of the sermon on the mount. Jesus manifests his perfect union with the will of god as revealed in the old testament law and prophets.