This week Bonhoeffer moves from the Christian life in community to the Christian’s individual walk.  He hones in on the fact that “the Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium.”  In other words, the Christian community is not where a Christian goes to fix the soul and then move on.  Bonhoeffer has a double warning for both those who would tend toward solitude and those who tend toward community: “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.  Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”

After this warning, Bonhoeffer goes on to argue that “the day together will be unfruitful without the day alone, both for the fellowship and for the individual.”  The mark of true solitude is silence, and “silence is the simple stillness of the individual under the word of God.”  Bonhoeffer argues convincingly that without this solitude–not a solitude that cuts us off from men altogether, but a solitude that happens in our daily Christian lives as we go to work, school, etc. and are parted from the community of believers–the Christian’s spiritual life will be stunted.  But when we truly stand before God throughout the day, allowing his word to soak in, “we meet others in a different and fresh way” and the community of believers will thrive.

Bonhoeffer argues that the Christian needs to have at least some time throughout the day in which he can be alone for three purposes:

1. Scripture Meditation–The Christian takes a short passage of Scripture and is “alone with the Word,” perhaps taking a single passage and “sitting” with that passage for upward of a week.  Whereas in group study you cover the breadth of Scripture, here you dwell in the depths of the Word and ask God how it applies to you personally.
2. Prayer–Reading the Scripture necessarily leads us to prayer.  We take things to God in personal prayer that we may not offer up in the fellowship.  This time of prayer is personal and deep.
3. Intercession–We are to take our brothers and sisters before God in intercession.  ”I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.”

For Bonhoeffer, the test of meditation (and prayer and intercession) is the way one conducts himself in the “real world,” in everyday life.  Does he leave the fellowship and feel lost in the world?  Then something is amiss.  Does he leave his time of meditation and fall into despair when he meets a trial?  The Word is not dwelling deeply enough.  How we live throughout the day tells us whether our fellowship and our individual time before God is strengthening us or making us dependent.

So how is your meditation time?  Do you have a method of meditating on the Word that has been particularly helpful for you?  How does your reaction to others in the secular world reflect your time in the Word?