“The Word of God seeks out community in order to accept it. It exists mainly within the community. It moves on its own into the community. It has an inherent impulse toward community. It is wrong to assume that one the one hand there is a word, or a truth, and on the other hand there is a community existing as two separate entities, and that it would be the task of the preacher to take this word, to manipulate and enliven it, in order to bring it it within and apply it to the community. Rather the Word moves along this path of its own accord. The preacher should and can do nothing more than be a servant of this movement inherent in the Word itself, and refrain from placing obstacles in its path.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (DBW4), 228.
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