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Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes - Page 14

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Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it is a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it is a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Jesus, Mean
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.10, SCM Press

Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Enemy, Midst
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.97, SCM Press

If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Believe, Firsts
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.24, SCM Press

The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy's hatred. For then it is not the disciple's own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Hatred, Enemy
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Geffrey B. Kelly (1990). “A testament to freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, Harpercollins

The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Essence, Grace, Discipleship
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.3, SCM Press

That fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than that fact that I will die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Important, Facts

Jesus Christ has to suffer and be rejected... Suffering and being rejected are not the same.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Suffering, Christ
"The Cost of Discipleship (Discipleship and the Cross)". Book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (p. 84), 1937.

Just as God's love entered the world, thereby submitting to the misunderstanding and ambiguity that characterize everything worldly, so also Christian love does not exist anywhere but in the worldly, in an infinite variety of concrete worldly action, and subject to misunderstanding and condemnation. Every attempt to portray a Christianity of 'pure' love purged of worldly 'impurities' is a false purism and perfectionism that scorns God's becoming human and falls prey to the fate of all ideologies. God was not too pure to enter the world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Fall, Fate

Jesus' commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Wish, Heal
"The Cost of Discipleship". Book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Preface), as translated by Barbara Green and Reihhard Krauss, 1937.

By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Jesus, Self
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.92, SCM Press

The cross is suffering with Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Suffering, Christ, Crosses
"The Cost of Discipleship (Discipleship and the Cross)". Book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (p. 86), 1937.

We should find God in what we do know, not in what we don't; not in outstanding problems, but in those we have already solved.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God, Problem, Should

Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to each of us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Community, Done, Christ
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.14, SCM Press

Humanly speaking, it is possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. But Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience - not interpreting or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his words. He does not mean for us to discuss it as an ideal. He really means for us to get on with it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Mean, Simple

Neighbourliness is not a quality in other people, it is simply their claim on ourselves.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
People, Quality, Claims
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.78, Simon and Schuster

Will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me becuase it so thoroughly teaches me that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Jesus, Morning

Man no longer lives in the beginning--he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end. He sees that his life is determined by these two facets, of which he knows only that he does not know them

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Men, Two, Knowing
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1959). “Creation and fall: a theological interpretation of Genesis 1-3”

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself." The disciple must say to himself the same words Peter said of Christ when he denied him: "I know not this man." Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that. To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Suicide, Men, Self
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

And after death something new begins, over which all the powers of the world of death can have no more control.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Life Changing, World, Might
"The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer".

Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Deep Water, Helping, Where You Are
"The Cost of Discipleship".

If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible and especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ...It does not depend, therefore, on whether the Psalms express adequately that which we feel at a given moment in our heart. If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Prayer, Heart

Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure is lost to the Christian church. With its recovery will come unexpected power.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Recovery, Church
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1996). “Life Together: Prayerbook of the Bible”, Fortress Pr

We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Unsolved Problems, Knows
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2007). “I Want to Live These Days with You: A Year of Daily Devotions”, p.253, Westminster John Knox Press

Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
People, Waiting, Satisfied
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”, p.6, Westminster John Knox Press

When we come to a clearer and more sober estimate of our own limitations and responsibilities, that makes it possible more genuinely to love our neighbor.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Responsibility, Sober, Neighbor

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