Discussion question your group will work through:
1.Bonhoeffer wrote *Life Together* from first-hand experience of an intensely close, and ultimately threatened, Christian community at Finkenwalde. How does knowing this background change the way you approach a book about Christian fellowship? Does it raise or lower your expectations?
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About This Study Guide
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together in 1938, drawing directly from his experience leading the underground Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde, Germany — a community that the Gestapo would eventually shut down. The book is both a practical handbook and a theological meditation on what it means to live in genuine Christian community. Its central thesis is deceptively simple and profoundly challenging: Christian community is not a human achievement or an ideal to be realized, but a divine gift to be received. When we approach community as something we create — shaped by our wishes and dreams — we inevitably become disillusioned and destructive. But when we receive one another as gifts of God's grace, something miraculous becomes possible. Bonhoeffer organizes this argument across five chapters: Community, The Day with Others, The Day Alone, Ministry, and Confession and Communion.
This study guide is designed for use in a small group or for personal study over seven weeks (one introductory week, one week per chapter, and a final review week). The recommended pattern is simple: read the assigned chapter before your meeting, spend time journaling your responses to the questions on your own, and then bring your reflections into conversation with others or into prayer. Because Life Together is itself about the rhythms of community life — shared Scripture reading, prayer, song, silence, confession, and the Lord's Table — it is a fitting irony that this guide is best used together. Don't rush. Bonhoeffer's prose is dense and rewarding; a single paragraph often repays slow, careful re-reading.
You will find this guide probing in unexpected places. Bonhoeffer has a way of diagnosing the very sins that religious communities most easily overlook — the pious wish-dream, the manipulative use of words, the flight from solitude, the refusal to confess. Expect to be convicted as well as encouraged. The goal is not merely to understand a classic Christian text, but to be shaped by it into a community — or a person — more truly conformed to the One in whose name we gather.
7-Week Schedule
- Week 1Introduction — The Context and the Gift6 questions
- Week 2Chapter 1 — Community7 questions
- Week 3Chapter 2 — The Day with Others8 questions
- Week 4Chapter 3 — The Day Alone8 questions
- Week 5Chapter 4 — Ministry7 questions
- Week 6Chapter 5 — Confession and Communion8 questions
- Week 7Review & Reflection — The Whole Vision8 questions
Week 1: Introduction — The Context and the Gift
Free sampleRead the Preface and introductory framing of Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Primary Scripture: Psalm 133:1; John 17:20-23.
1.Bonhoeffer wrote *Life Together* from first-hand experience of an intensely close, and ultimately threatened, Christian community at Finkenwalde. How does knowing this background change the way you approach a book about Christian fellowship? Does it raise or lower your expectations?
2.Many people come to a Christian community — a church, a small group, a seminary — carrying an image of what it *should* be like. What is your own 'wish-dream' of ideal Christian community? Be as honest and specific as you can.
a.Where do you think that image came from — a past community, a book, a sermon, an idealized picture of the early church?
b.How has reality ever collided painfully with that image?
3.Bonhoeffer opens the book by noting that not every Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians — some are scattered, isolated, or imprisoned. How does recognizing Christian community as a *privilege* rather than a given change the posture with which you enter it?
4.The book's key anchor text is Psalm 133:1 — 'How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!' What does this verse assume that community already *is*, before we do anything to build it?
5.Bonhoeffer was writing in a context of political crisis, clandestine ministry, and imminent danger. How does that historical pressure serve as a kind of stress-test for his theology of community? What can communities under pressure teach comfortable communities?
6.What do you hope to gain personally from studying this book — and what might you be afraid to find in it?
Week 2: Chapter 1 — Community
Read Chapter 1 ('Community') of Life Together. Primary Scripture: Romans 15:7; John 17:20-23.
1.Bonhoeffer makes the foundational claim that 'Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.' In your own words, what is the practical difference between treating community as an ideal to achieve versus a reality to receive?
Week 3: Chapter 2 — The Day with Others
Read Chapter 2 ('The Day with Others') of Life Together. Primary Scripture: Colossians 3:16; Psalm 119:105.
1.Bonhoeffer describes the common morning devotion — Scripture reading, singing, prayer — as the irreplaceable foundation of the common day. Why does he insist the day together *must* begin with God's Word, and what happens to a community whose shared life does not have this anchor?
Week 4: Chapter 3 — The Day Alone
Read Chapter 3 ('The Day Alone') of Life Together. Primary Scripture: Matthew 6:6; Mark 1:35.
1.Bonhoeffer opens with a striking double claim: 'Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community. Whoever cannot stand being in community should beware of being alone.' What is the logic of this paradox? Why do solitude and community require each other?
Week 5: Chapter 4 — Ministry
Read Chapter 4 ('Ministry') of Life Together. Primary Scripture: Mark 10:43-45; Romans 12:10.
1.Bonhoeffer opens this chapter by naming the great enemy of Christian service: the desire to dominate, to be significant, to shape others according to our own vision. He calls this the 'will to power' that lurks beneath even spiritual leadership. Have you ever recognized in yourself the impulse to serve others in a way that is really about controlling them? What did that look like?
Week 6: Chapter 5 — Confession and Communion
Read Chapter 5 ('Confession and Communion') of Life Together. Primary Scripture: James 5:16; 1 John 1:8-9.
1.Bonhoeffer opens by observing that many Christians live in a condition of secret sin and private shame, experiencing 'the burden of hidden sin' — confessing to God but never to another person. He argues this leaves people in a kind of prolonged spiritual loneliness. Have you ever experienced the isolation that comes from carrying an unconfessed sin that only God (and you) know about?
Week 7: Review & Reflection — The Whole Vision
Review your notes and journal entries from all five chapters of Life Together. Scripture: John 17:20-23; Ephesians 4:1-6.
1.Looking back across the five chapters, which single idea, image, or quote from Bonhoeffer struck you most forcefully — the one that most changed your thinking or convicted you most deeply? Why did it land so hard?
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many weeks is the Life Together study guide?
This study guide covers Life Together in 7 weeks, with chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, reading references, and closing prayers for each session.
How many discussion questions are included?
The complete guide includes 52 discussion questions across 7 weeks — an average of 7 questions per week, designed for group conversation.
Can I use this guide for a book club?
Yes — the questions are written for group discussion and work well for small groups, book clubs, church studies, and couples reading together.
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