Just as Jesus let his body be broken and his blood be shed, he wants you to give up being a separate grain of wheat, a separate grape. He wants you to throw yourself into the unity of the body, the unity of the flowing wine. Through the death of Christ this unity is created. The new Spirit flows and gives life to the body, making it of one heart and one mind. This is the mystery of Christ, of the Church, of full uniting. This is the Lord’s Supper.
- Eberhard Arnold, January 1933
April 27,2025
- Eberhard Arnold From a letter, May 1920How glad I am that you are so positively united with me in the experience of peace and of Jesus’ spirit of love! The question is not at all one of our only refusing to do military service, though people always put it in this negative way. This refusal, after all, follows as a matter of course from a positive experience of the Spirit of Christ. When this Spirit, which is expressed so very intensely in the Sermon on the Mount and in Romans 8, penetrates us and glows in us, then we will become victorious people who must work as long as it is daylight—work in the productive, creative work of love.
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Only those hearts have peace and only those people bring peace and cause peace who love the whole truth. The truth of God brings wisdom and genuineness, for it creates perfect love. Love is ultimate truth. It brings peace.
- Eberhard Arnold
Love, as the peace of God, is the bond of perfection that unites in complete surrender and common activity all that was broken and scattered.
The dedication demanded in the Sermon on the Mount is not a new law or moral teaching. Instead it is forgiveness. Its vital element is the light and warmth of the Holy Spirit. Here is Christ: the essence of salt, and the strength of the tree that bears good fruit. The Sermon on the Mount shows us the character of a community, which shines like a light for the whole world.
- Eberhard Arnold