Top 100 Bonhoeffer's Quotes
#1. (Bonhoeffer's) change was not an ungainly, embarrassing leap from which he would have to retreat slightly when he gained more maturity and perspective. It was by all accounts a deepening consistent with what had gone before.
Eric Metaxas
#2. Bonhoeffer's experiences with African American community underscored an idea that was developing in his mind: the only real piety and power that he had seen in the American church seemed to be in the churches where there were a present reality and a past history of suffering.
Eric Metaxas
#3. The rich world of his ancestors set the standards for Dietrich Bonhoeffer's own life. It gave him a certainty of judgment and manner that cannot be acquired in a single generation.
Eric Metaxas
#4. Bonhoeffer's emphasis on the deep this-worldliness of Christianity does not lead to de-escahtologizing the gospel.
G. C. Berkouwer
#5. Bonhoeffer's permanent legacy as a theologian has been to show that in the modern world, as in Josiah's and Huldah's Jerusalem, fostering the discomfiting yet life-giving practice of reading the Bible against ourselves is a major public responsibility of the Christian teacher and theologian.
Ellen F. Davis
#6. The lecturer points to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's decision to get engaged while in prison as his "positive statement that life will go on," his affirmation of the power of love.
J. Rufus Fears
#7. Describing Bonhoeffer's demeanor on returning to danger in Germany rather than safety in America, with with a strong and joyful firmness such as only arises out of realized freedom.
Eric Metaxas
#8. Bonhoeffer's thought is not determined by the ultimacy of this world but by his opposition to 'the separation ... (of) the two spheres of the sacred and secular' and his insistence that 'faith is always ... an act involving the whole life
Kenneth Hamilton
#9. Bonhoeffer's rule never to speak about a brother in his absence. Bonhoeffer knew that living according to what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount was not "natural" for anyone.
Eric Metaxas
#10. Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#11. Bonhoeffer knew that when the church stops talking about Jesus, it has nothing to say. And when it assumes dominance, it's not talking about Jesus.
Samuel Wells
#12. If you reject God's commanding word, you will not receive God's gracious word.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#13. God wants to see human beings, not ghosts who shun the world ... Our marriage must be a 'yes' to God's earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth. I fear that Christians who venture to stand on earth on only one leg will stand in heaven on only one leg too.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#14. God does not exercise an alien domination of the world but a liberating lordship that sets creation free; God's rule lets family, culture, government, and church fulfill their created purposes, both distinct from and related to one another, and without any usurped heteronomy of one over the other.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#15. The person who's in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#16. Every day we must turn again to God's acts of salvation, so that we can again move forward ... . Faith and obedience live on remembrance and repetition. Remembrance becomes the power of the present because of the living God who once acted for me and who reminds me of that today.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#17. To be sure, God shall call you, and us, only at the hour that God has chosen. Until that hour, which lies in God's hand alone, we shall be protected even in the greatest danger; and from our gratitude for such protection ever new readiness surely arises for the final call
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#18. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#19. Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#20. Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. Do not defend God's word, but testify to it. Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Eric Metaxas
#21. Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#22. No one can say yes to God's ways who has said no to his promises and commandments. Acceptance of the will of God comes in the daily submission under his Word.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#23. Only those who put tomorrow completely into God's hand and receive fully today what they need for their lives are really secure.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#24. The pursuit of purity is not about the suppression of lust, but about the reorientation of one's life to a larger goal.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#25. It is solely the form of Christ that matters, not any form besides Christ's own. The church is the human being who has become human, has been judged, and has been awakened to new life in Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#26. Easter is not about immortality but about resurrection from a death that is a real death with all its frightfulness and horrors, resurrection from a death of the body and the soul, of the whole person, resurrection by the power of God's mighty act. This is the Easter message.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#27. One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#28. Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#29. Only those who place tomorrow in God's hands and receive what they need to live today are truly secure. Receiving daily liberates us from tomorrow. Thought for tomorrow delivers us up to endless worry.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#30. No one can speak of the beginning but the one who was in the beginning. Thus the Bible begins with God's free affirmation, free acknowledgment, free revelation of himself: In the beginning God created...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#31. We have grown so accustomed to the idea of divine love ... that we no longer sense the awe that God's coming should awaken in us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#32. Total war uses every conceivable means toward the end of national self-preservation. Everything is right and permitted that serves the cause of one's own people.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#33. My past life is abundantly full of God's mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#34. The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one's life towards a goal. Without such a goal, chastity is bound to become ridiculous. Chastity is the sine qua non of lucidity and concentration.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#36. Certainly one must try everything, but only to become more certain what God's way is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#37. Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been given such immense freedom and power to take the helm in their life's journey ...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#38. The cross is God's truth about us, and therefore it is the only power thatcanmakeustruthful.Whenwe know the cross we are no longer afraid of the truth.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#39. God has willed that we should seek and find God's living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#40. The deceit, the lie of the Devil consists of this, that he wishes to
make man believe that he can live without God's Word.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#41. Be glad. Celebrate! Lose your mindless fear, and take courage today. No, don't ever be afraid, no matter what's happened to you before. That's right, don't be afraid, no matter what you may see coming. Take courage because Christ was crucified for you.2 Catherine of Siena, Letters
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#42. Are you afraid of God's wrath? Then go to the child in the manger and receive there the peace of God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#43. it's harder for us to find what we are looking for and must do without, since we have come to expect more from friendship than most other people do. In this respect as well, it's not so easy to make do with "substitutes.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#44. It is essential for the image of the Leader that the group does not see the face of the one who goes before, but sees him only from behind as the figure stepping out ahead. His humanity is veiled in his Leader's form.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#45. Jesus is Lord of the ages and is always with his own, even when things are difficult, and will abide with us; that is our comfort. If tribulation and anxiety come upon us, Jesus is with us and leads us over into God's eternal kingdom.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#46. Consecutive reading of biblical books forces everyone who wants to hear to put himself, or to allow himself to be found, where God has acted once and for all for the salvation of men.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#47. 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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#48. Human beings have freedom toward death and the right to death, in the sense of sacrifice, but only when the good sought through sacrifice, and not the destruction of one's own life, is the reason for risking one's life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#49. We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#50. And we simply cannot be constant with the fact that God's cause is not always the successful one, that we really could be "unsuccessful"; and yet be on the right road. But this is where we find out whether we have begun in faith or in a burst of enthusiasm.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#51. God's word to me - new every day - in the infinite riches of interpretation.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#52. Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then let's see something to prove it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#53. Luther's return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#54. Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian's duty to bear.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#55. The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#56. Not enslaved to principles but bound by love for God, they have become free from the problems and conflicts of ethical decision. They are no longer weighed down by them. They belong completely and solely to God and God's will.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#57. 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 ...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#58. The real trouble is that the pure Word of Jesus has been overlaid with so much human ballast - burdensome rules and regulations, false hopes and consolations - that it has become extremely difficult to make a genuine decision for Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#59. Suffering, then, is the badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master. Following Christ means passio passiva, suffering because we have to suffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#60. 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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#61. When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#62. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#64. Music ... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#65. 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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#66. Christian marriage is marked by discipline and self-denial ... C hristianity does not therefore depreciate marriage, it sanctifies it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#67. How impossible, how utterly absurd it would be for the disciples
these disciples, such men as these!
to try and become the light of the world! No, they are already the light, and the call has made them so.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#68. In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#69. Every Christian must be fully Christian by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some spiritual realm.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#70. Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#71. The biggest mistake you can make in your life is to be always afraid of making a mistake.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#73. 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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#74. The religion of Christ is not a tidbit after One's bread; on the contrary, it is the bread or it is nothing. People should at least understand and concede this if they call themselves Christians.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#75. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#76. I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#77. If there is so much blessing and joy even in a single encounter of brother with brother, how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God's will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#79. Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian's life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#80. The richness of God's Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#81. It's much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#82. The believer is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. To be either is illusory. The believer sees reality not in a certain light but as it is, and believes only in God and God's power towards all and over all that is seen. (in No Rusty Swords)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#83. God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#85. Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#86. Faith without works is not faith at all, but a simple lack of obedience to God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#87. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#88. Bonhoeffer said it's not about hero worship, but intimacy with God.
Jan Karon
#89. The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#90. [ ... ]he who can speak out of the abundance of God's Word, the wealth of directions, admonitions, and consolations of the Scriptures, will be able through God's Word to drive out demons and help his brother.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#93. Instead, choose decaf for your second cup of the day, engage in good sleeping habits, moderate insulin production in your diet, exercise Primally and boost energy naturally with cold water plunges, deep breathing sequences, napping or quick exercise breaks after long periods of inactivity.
Mark Sisson
#94. We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#96. If any want to become my followers," Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him ... "If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves ... and take up their cross.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#97. It is not that God is the spectator and sharer of our present life, howsoever important that is; but rather that we are the reverent listeners and participants in God's action in the sacred story, the history of the Christ on earth.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#98. Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#100. Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily and answers in the Word of Jesus Christ ...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
