Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoefferwas a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship became a modern classic...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth4 February 1906
CountryGermany
desire sake poverty
Desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer. Lack of desire is poverty.
jesus home uncomfortable-feeling
So many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus.
brother pain blessed
As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.
reality
All are called to be what in the reality of God they already are.
spiritual mean love-is
Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.
christian hatred enemy
Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love.
morning prayer work
Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrough to God. Decisions, demanded by work, become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of men, but only in the sight of God. He wants to give us today the power which we need for our work.
hands tools principles
Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.
appreciation truth real
Telling the truth ... is not solely a matter of moral character; it is also a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.
running mean decision
But to procrastinate and prevaricate simply because you're afraid of erring, when others - I mean our brethren in Germany - must make infinitely more difficult decisions every day, seems to me almost to run counter to love. To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love.
grace christianity monastic-life
Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.
christian jesus taken
It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. … So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.
spiritual sleep should-have
We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God.
prayer school great-schools
The Psalter is the great school of prayer.