Beeson Podcast, Episode #566 Dr. Paul House Sept. 14, 2021 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, I am your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. And today we’re beginning a new series on the show discussing the theme of our new Beeson Magazine, which is Persevering in Ministry Through Challenging Times. For each of the next three weeks we’ll feature Beeson faculty members who have contributed to the magazine. We hope these interviews will whet your appetite for the magazine itself and if they do you can access a beautiful digital version of Beeson Magazine at www.BeesonDivinity.com/beesonmagazine. Before we get started a word about our upcoming Preview Day. Our first Preview Day of the fall semester is September 17th. It will be followed by another Preview Day on October the 15th. So, if you or someone you know should be part of our learning community, we would love to have you for Beeson Preview Day. Learn more and sign up at www.BeesonDivinity.com/previewday. All right, Kristen, would you please introduce our esteemed guest and get our conversation started? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes, hello everyone. We are with Dr. Paul House. He is professor of Divinity here at Beeson Divinity School where he teaches Old Testament and Hebrew. He’s been on the podcast before and so I’m sure many of our listeners will already know or be familiar with Dr. House and perhaps through some of his writings. He’s written commentaries on Isaiah and Daniel and I & II Kings. As well as a book called, “Bonhoeffer Seminary Vision,” which we use here at Beeson Divinity School. So, we want to talk to you today, Dr. House. And just welcome to the show. We’re so glad you’re with us. >>Dr. House: Thank you. It’s an honor to be with you. >>Kristen Padilla: Yeah, well, we want to talk to you about an article that you contributed to our 2021 Beeson Magazine on a person that perhaps none of our listeners or very few of our listeners have ever heard before. So, what drew you to write about the person of Fritz Onnasch and who was Fritz? >>Dr. House: Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to talk about him. Fritz Onnasch was a close associate of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and was integral to all of Bonhoeffer’s seminary work. I became interested in Onnasch through studying Bonhoeffer’s seminary work from 1937 to 1940. Two years ago through help, through our faculty development fund, and through other friends, I was able to go to Germany and Poland to visit the five sites where Bonhoeffer’s seminaries took place. One of those places is [Koszalin 00:03:15], which is now in Poland. Well, all of those sites are now in Poland. And so that is where Fritz Onnasch was Bonhoeffer’s associate and helper. He was also his associate and helper in Finkenwalde, which is now in the town of Szczecin, Poland. So, I got more interested. And the more I dug into Onnasch’s life the more I understood that he was neglected and that you would not understand Bonhoeffer effectively if you didn’t understand Onnasch’s role in his life. You asked about Onnasch. He was born in 1911. He was struck with Polio when he was eight years old. So, he had one bad leg the rest of his life. So, he limped. Because of his need for treatment his father, Friedrich, took the church in Koszalin to be the pastor of St. Mary’s Church and to be District Superintendant for 22 churches in Pomerania. Fritz went to university at [Erlangen 00:04:15], which was a Lutheran stronghold at the time. He finished there in 1933 and was with his father, founding member of the Confessing Church, and from 1935 to 1945 he served Confessing Church in a very deep and abiding way, because he had this injury he was not able, he was not called up to war, so he served completely through World War II up till when he was killed on March 4, 1945. >>Doug Sweeney: As I mentioned in our introduction, Dr. House, the theme of this year’s magazine is Persevering in Ministry Through Hard Times, through difficult times. And as we read your article on Fritz Onnasch it became very clear that he’s somebody who persevered in ministry through very difficult times. In fact, at the end of your article, you talk about how his brother-in-law, another pretty well known theologian named Eberhard Bethge, described him as someone who is imperturbable. So, what does that mean? What can we learn from an imperturbable sort of ministry? >>Dr. House: Yes, I think it meant that his brother-in-law was not easily shaken, that he was steadfast, that he endured. I noted a couple of days ago that Bonhoeffer uses this term of “God” in a sermon on Psalm 42 he delivered in June 1935, and the way he describes God there is reliable, strong, a rock, enduring, unshakeable, immovable. And nearly everybody that knew Fritz Onnasch described him in these terms. There were other terms they used to describe him but the stability and willingness to continue forward no matter what the circumstances marked his life. >>Kristen Padilla: Many American Christians ... And we talked about this yesterday, Dr. House, for a few minutes ... seem to be interested in Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church and we might glamorize or really put their endurance and perseverance up as this model but then when it comes to suffering ourselves, that’s a whole different story and it may be more difficult when we’re faced with true suffering, like we have this last year with COVID. Can you speak to this dissonance? How we can better prepare for suffering without also glorifying it? >>Dr. House: Yes, I think one of the differences between Bonhoeffer and Onnasch and many of us is that they expected as they went into ministry in the 1930’s – they expected that these would be difficult times, that this was a time for church renewal that would not come easily. And so they really believed that in this world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer. “I’ve overcome the world,” the words of Christ. And so I think rather than feeling like something unusual has happened now that we’re suffering, they thought this was going to be part of life and hope to be patient till God’s renewal would come. I also think something interesting ... Bonhoeffer strikes me, and I don’t want to be unkind, but people like Bonhoeffer as long as they can envision themselves in his shoes being a spy or telling off Hitler, or being a part of a conspiracy. But the idea of being involved in a church renewal project that took 12 years, it was never completed. Which included imprisonment, which included all sorts of difficulties. And for some of Bonhoeffer’s students who lived through the war, had lived in East Germany, really some of those circumstances pertain through 1990, not just through 1945. So, I think we need to see these people for what they were, which are examples for the long haul who understood that the Christian life is not one of ease but one that requires bedrock commitment to the Word of God and to following Christ to the cross. So, now I would like to say, too, that Bonhoeffer and Onnasch were people who enjoyed life and who were appreciative of good times. Onnasch had a wonderful relationship with his wife, a great partnership. Bonhoeffer was engaged at the end of his life and very hopeful about the future. So, their endurance did not make them sour or unhappy or somehow unwilling to go forward. But I think they accepted it as a normal practice of life. I think we have to do the same because all the best Christians I know have faced suffering, have found out that their faith is tested and true, and that as they go forward the Lord blesses them. >>Doug Sweeney: What do you think, Dr. House, about people ... Some of whom I’m thinking about right now, loved ones of mine, who live in the relatively comfortable context of the United States and they know because they’re bible believers that Christian faith comes with suffering, but it just becomes very difficult for them to persevere in faithfulness to the Lord when they suffer. It’s one thing when you read about the suffering of people during war time or in the bible. Again, I don’t mean to be unkind, but we can cast a blind eye at the suffering of other people in faraway places and still maintain a steadfast faith in the Lord. But somehow for some of us when suffering really hits close to home, it becomes existentially really difficult for us to persevere in an imperturbable sort of a way. What advice do you have for us? Can you help us just as a minister of the Word of God understand how to be more faithful when suffering hits me, hits close to my home, my life? >>Dr. House: Yes. I think Fritz Onnasch is a good life to look at. He was Bonhoeffer’s associate director in the last semester they did in Finkenwalde in the summer of 1937. Shortly thereafter on November 18, 1937 Onnasch was imprisoned, as were many pastors at that time, for a six week period. And Bonhoeffer and Bethge went to visit Onnasch in jail and Bonhoeffer elated later that he was pretty shaken up by it. But Onnasch tried to put him at ease. So, Bonhoeffer did better in prison later himself, but I was thinking about what it is that we put into our lives that helps us to be built for endurance because [inaudible 00:11:19] but the bible says this is going to happen. Death is not a reward by the way and the processes of death are actually more dire these days because of the helpfulness of medicine than they have been in the past. How do we build a life for this? This is why Onnasch and Bonhoeffer insisted on helping ministers develop daily habits of bible reading, of prayer, including praying the Psalms, half of which are laments of interceding for other people who are in prison who are sick. Visiting the people who are in prison or who were hurting. Using hospitality to take in people who are suffering and hurting. So, they were willing to bring this into their lives so that the habits that would come, that would help them when they were alone and in prison, would sustain their lives. So, I would also go on with Onnasch. He had this relationship with his wife, Margaret, where they were co-laborers of Christ, bringing people into their own home who were refugees, including Jews and Communists, who continued to live life together as if their home was open as the seminary had been. And were willing to open up their table to people who were in need. But it was the daily habit of prayer and worship and good relationship in the family that helped them when they could be together and when they had to be a part. So, arguing from the tougher situation, which I think was theirs to ours, how are we doing on establishing and fostering the habits of personal and home based bible reading and prayer and encouragement and intercession and giving and reaching out to people however we can? And so there’s part of me that says if we never see another person suffering, we never pray for them, we never read about them, we never look out for them, we’re not only going to be surprised by suffering, we’re going to be repelled by it. So, I think the very habits that we need to learn are part of being sustained in the kind of situation we’re in now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve mentioned the seminary work of both Bonhoeffer and Onnasch. I can’t help but think about your own work here at Beeson Divinity School where you are training men and women for ministry. What do you think future ministers of the church, or even just current ministers of the church, need to think about as it relates to this perseverance in ministry? I know you mentioned some of the habits that Bonhoeffer and Onnasch emphasized in the seminary, but as you think about your own work, your mentoring relationship with students and alumni, how are you hoping to shape ministers of the gospel and specifically how is Beeson trying to shape ministers who will endure through difficult times? >>Dr. House: I’m glad to talk about that. I’m also happy to report that I do know many Beeson students who have endured less than ideal circumstances. Above and beyond the normal difficulties and sufferings of life. So, I’m grateful when I see that. I think at Beeson and anywhere else who cares about shaping ministers, and Bonhoeffer and Onnasch ... I think the first thing they understood was that you had to stop seeing the ministry as a profession and understand it as a vocation. That, in fact, was part of Bonhoeffer’s conversion experience by his own admission. Once he saw this was not about himself and about his profession, but it was about his fundamental relationship to Jesus Christ and his calling in his life, he had things the wrong way around. Once he understood it was a vocation and a calling he saw then that he could not separate himself from God’s people. And that he had to be guided then by God’s Word, the scriptures. And that it would be the scriptures that then showed him how to be a minister, how to be a friend, how to be a teacher, how to be a seminary director. Onnasch was very almost simplistic in his trust of the Word. So that Bonhoeffer was about to give a talk in October 1938 to ministers who were wavering and he asked Onnasch what should he say that night. Onnasch very simply said, “Well, tell them to take up their cross and follow Jesus.” So, to him it was almost that simple. And there’s something about a childhood illness, I have found, that I had one, not as severe as Onnasch’s, that makes you think, “Well, if you haven’t learned to go forward by now, when will you?” So, I would say to perspective students – this is a calling, this is a vocation. It will take your whole self. That would be true if you were in any other vocation as well. This is a very special one in which you will be asked to be there for others. For God, for others, for your family, and that you will live this life that Jesus lived of giving yourself on behalf of others. And I think unless we have that capability, that desire, that calling, we won’t then say, “God’s Word is primary. God’s people are primary.” And so forth. So, if we get our calling right then we see it in light of the Word of God, the people of God, and the service of the cross. There are days in which I think I understand that. (laughs) But I’m still trying very hard to live into that. But that’s the kind of teaching, that’s the kind of entering, that’s why we have mentoring groups at Beeson – so that we can gather and pray for one another, to intercede for one another, to come alongside one another. We worship together not as an activity, or as an obligation, but as representing that we’re all one in Christ. We take up our learning because we want to serve the people of God, not because solely about grades and professional things and that sort of thing. And I think Bonhoeffer’s point about discipleship, the German word for “discipleship” is very interesting because it can either be translated as a follower or as a successor. And Bonhoeffer’s emphasis on Jesus training the disciples to take his place and we’re always training people, frankly not to take our place but to continue to take Jesus’ place to be his body on earth. And that’s a wonderful calling, but that’s what we’re about. Not about making you great successes in major leadership roles in the greatest country on earth. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. House, given the timing of this interview as the COVID epidemic is raging again and numbers are surging, we should probably ask you a question about ministry, persevering through difficulty during COVID-19, during an epidemic. As you’ve looked around and experienced the epidemic yourself and watched pastors and other ministry leaders guide people through this epidemic, has your thinking about this general theme of persevering in the midst of suffering been seasoned at all, affected at all? What would you say to pastors and other ministry folks who are listening to us now about things you might have learned from your study of Bonhoeffer in his world that apply to the way we think about living faithfully now in the midst of this epidemic? >>Dr. House: Yeah, I think we have a great opportunity to prove that we believe what we say we believe to the people who God has given us and so I will just speak as a husband, father, son-in-law, grandfather – during this time we’ve had the opportunity, my wife and I, to go serve for several weeks helping her folks as her mom recovers from bone marrow cancer. I’ve had the need to offer encouragement and support to my daughter and her family as they raise three small children and just try to stick with this because it continues to go on. I think also have the chance to live with authenticity before younger people. I’m 63 now. And so I have enough experience to think we will weather this storm. We will come through it. In part, because I’ve had experiences before. But a lot of my students are 25 or so and they bring a wealth of experience with them, but they haven’t had the series of things. So, as I look back on all the years, I need to be telling them, “God does protect us. God does help us. But he does it by giving us other people to encourage us and to stand with us and if need be come live with us and take care of us.” And so I think everything that the Lord has put into us to this day will be used during this time. But I am encouraged that over and over again people now have a sense, we’d like to be together. We would like to be sharing with one another. That this plague is particularly not a blessing because it separates us from people. But it is a blessing in that it gives us an opportunity to learn to die to self and put other people first. And to have the chance, as Onnasch did over and over again – Bonhoeffer could have stayed where it was easier, he came back to Germany. Onnasch and his wife could have chosen to leave their ministry post when the Soviet Army was coming. They chose the hard path. Fritz, frankly, did not choose what was going to be best for his wife or his infant son who was just born if it meant him living. So, we’re in a real I Corinthians 9 moment where we can give up whatever we perceive our rights to be and ask ourselves how we can serve others for the glory of God and to whatever tiny percentage of what Onnasch and the apostle Paul and Jesus did that I’ve done, I’m grateful. So, I would say to our student, “Keep serving.” The old gospel song, “The way of the cross leads home.” (laughs) I still believe it. >>Kristen Padilla: We always enjoy ending these podcasts by just asking our guest to share what the Lord has been teaching you in your devotional time. I mean, you’ve already just shared some great wisdom with us. So, I don’t know if you have anything to add to that, but if so, we would just love to hear what the Lord is teaching you these days and how that might encourage us? >>Dr. House: Yeah. I would just add this summer I had two or three teaching opportunities. One was in I Peter and one was in Job. And since James is the only book of the New Testament to cite Job directly, I was having James help me understand the difference between tests and temptations. God will send circumstances that will test our faith in the sense that a test is supposed to be about things we need to know to make sure we know them. It’s not a mental exercise. And to prove to us and to the world that we’re with him. It is Satan who tempts us to do the wrong thing. James is very helpful with this, to divide that up because the Greek word could be used either way. So, God’s been teaching me the difference between a test and a temptation. I’m trying to embrace the test because that’s what God’s doing. And to patiently and humbly endure as I’ve been reading those books and as I re-read most of Bonhoeffer’s sermons this summer, and as I’ve been trying to get some sense of what made a person like Fritz Onnasch go. The Lord has been helping and encouraging me that however many years I have left he will keep teaching me and using me. And I’m grateful for that. >>Doug Sweeney: I am too. Dear listeners, you have been listening to Dr. Paul House, a beloved professor of Old Testament, among other things, here at Beeson Divinity School for many years. We are glad that you have joined us. We invite you to join us as we learn from a variety of brothers and sisters in Christ here at the Divinity School in a special way, in the weeks ahead, what it means to take up our crosses and follow Jesus, and to suffer faithfully and fruitfully. Our prayer is that even this little podcast will play a role in helping you to suffer more faithfully and fruitfully in the manner of and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Thanks for being here. Please continue to pray for us. We pray for you. And we say goodbye to you for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.