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
christian prayer knowing
It matters little what form of prayer we adopt or how many words we use. What matters is the faith which lays hold on God, knowing that He knows our needs before we even ask Him. That is what gives Christian prayer its boundless confidence and its joyous certainty.
christian needs helping
The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.
christ
Every call of Christ leads into death.
love judging envy
God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.
christian foe thick
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.
positive spring responsibility
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
kings kingdoms strange
A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.
evil combat refuse
Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words..
stress home storm
A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
artist today polymaths
The 'polymath' had already died out by the close of the eighteenth century, and in the following century intensive education replaced extensive, so that by the end of it the specialist had evolved. The consequence is that today everyone is a mere technician, even the artist...
battle weapons way
Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.
brother listening fellowship
The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.
jesus father hands
If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we are given all things, literally _all_ things. He will see to it that they are added unto us. If we follow Jesus and look only to His righteousness, we are in his hands and under the protection of Him and His Father. And if we are in communion with the Father, nought can harm us. God will help us in the hour of need, and He knows our needs.
reading men daily-tasks
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then, pass them by, preoccupied with our important daily tasks, just as the priest-perhaps reading the Bible-passed by the man who had fallen among robbers. When we do that, we pass by the visible sign of the Cross raised in our lives to show us that God’s way, and not our own, is what counts.