Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes & Sayings

Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness.5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is a wicked sophistry to justify the worldliness of the Church by the cross of Christ. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that he is independent. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.2 — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The proper relation of the Church to the world cannot be deduced from natural law or rational law or from universal human rights, but only from the gospel of Jesus Christ. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Consequently there is a need for spiritual vitality. What protection is there against the danger of organisation? Man is once more faced with the problem of himself. He can cope with every danger except the danger of human nature itself. In the last resort it all turns upon man. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Unfortunately I'm not on the same wavelength as Maria yet in the literary sphere. She writes me such good, natural letters, but she reads ... Rilke, Bergengruen, Binding, Wiechert; I regard the last three as being below our level and the first as being decidedly unhealthy. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It seems to me more important actually to share someones distress than to use smooth words about it. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Time lost is time not filled, time left empty. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And take up their cross. That cross is already there, ready, from the very beginning; we need only take it up. But to keep us from believing that we must simply choose any arbitrary cross, or simply pick out our suffering as we will, Jesus emphasizes that each of us has his or her own cross, ready, appointed, and appropriately measured by God.1 — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Therefore let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers' (Rom 13.1). The Christian must not be drawn to the bearers of high office; his calling is to stay below. The higher power are over him, and he must remain under them. The world exercises dominion, the Christian serves, and thus he shares the earthly lot of his Lord, who became a servant. 'For there is no power but of God.' (Mark 10.42-45) These words are addressed to the Christians, not to the powers. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In Jesus, the service of God and the service of the least of the brethren were one. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Every word of Holy Scripture was a love letter from God directed very personally to us and he asked us whether we loved Jesus. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

If the heart is devoted to the mirage of the world, to the creature instead of the Creator, the disciple is lost ... However urgently Jesus may call us, His call fails to find access to our hearts ... for they have already been given to another. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Christian marriage is marked by discipline and self-denial ... C hristianity does not therefore depreciate marriage, it sanctifies it. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Politics are not the task of a Christian. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Henceforth, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all that bears a human form. Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race. By being partakers of Christ incarnate, we are partakers in the whole humanity which he bore. We now know that we have been taken up and borne in the humanity of Jesus, and therefore that new nature we now enjoy means that we too must bear the sins and sorrows of others. The incarnate Lord makes his followers the brothers of all mankind. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Since the appearance of Christ, ethics can be concerned with only one thing: to partake in the reality of the fulfilled will of God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the world God wills work, marriage, government, and church, and God wills all these, each in its own way, through Christ, toward Christ, and in Christ. God has placed human beings under all these mandates, not only each individual under one or the other, but all people under all four. There can be no retreat, therefore, from a "worldly" into a "spiritual" "realm." The practice of the Christian life can be learned only under these four mandates of God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife that cannot be overcome by intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My past life is abundantly full of God's mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Gerat will be our astonishment in that day, and we shall then realize that it is not our works which remain, but the work which God has wrought through us in his good time without any effort of will and intention on our part. Once again we simply are to look away from ourselves to him who has himself accomplished all things for us and to follow him. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is not surprising, of course, that those who attempt to discredit the evidence of Scripture are the people who themselves do not seriously read, know, or make a thorough study of the Scriptures. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As Christians, we needn't be at all ashamed of some impatience, longing, opposition to what is unnatural, and our full share of desire for freedom, earthly happiness, and opportunity for effective work. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

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

Why does the Old Testament law never punish anyone by depriving him of his freedom? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

They get married, but their marriage will look quite different from marriage as the world understands it. Christian marriage will be undertaken "in the Lord" (I Cor. 7.39). It will be sanctified in the service of the Body of Christ and in the discipline of prayer and self-control (I Cor. 7.5). It will be a parable of the self-sacrificing love of Christ for his Church. It will even be itself a part of the Body of Christ, a Church in miniature (Eph. 5.32). — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'm now reading Tertullian, Cyprian, and others of the church fathers with great interest. In some ways they are more relevant to our time than the Reformers, and at the same time they provide a basis for talks between Protestants and Roman Catholics. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Only the believing obey, only the obedient believe — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ's; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ's eyes. This is the meaning of the proposition that we can meet others only through the meditation of Christ. Human love constructs its own image of the person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The word of the justifying grace of God never departs from its position as the final word; it never yields itself simply as a result that has been achieved. . . . The word remains irreversibly the last; for otherwise it would be reduced to the quality of what is calculable, a merchandise, and would thereby be robbed of its divine character. Grace would be venal and cheap. It would not be a gift.1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As Christ bore and received us as sinners so we in his fellowship may bear and receive sinners into the fellowship of Christ through the forgiving of sins. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so would be sin ... We cannot rightly acknowledge the gifts of God unless we acknowledge the Mediator for whose sake alone they are given to us. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Life is not a thing, an essence, or a concept,[10] but a person - more specifically, a particular and unique person. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

The restoration of the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ according to the sermon on the mount. I believe the time has come to gather people together to do this. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Confession is the God-given remedy for self-deception and self-indulgence. When we confess our sins before a brother-Christian, we are mortifying the pride of the flesh and delivering it up to shame and death through Christ. Then through the word of absolution we rise as new men, utterly dependent on the mercy of God. Confession is thus a genuine part of the life of the saints, and one of the gifts of grace. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

It is the nature of strong people that they can bring out crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The consciousness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that goes back for centuries gives one a feeling of confidence and security in the face of all passing strains and stresses. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We ought not to be in too much of a hurry here to speak piously of God's will and guidance. It is obvious, and it should not be ignored, that it is your own very human wills that are at work here, celebrating their triumph; the course that you are taking at the outset is one that you have chosen for yourselves ... — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In other times it may have been the business of Christianity to champion the equality of all men; its business today will be to defend passionately human dignity and reserve. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Only the suffering God can help. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There can be no real attachment to the given creation, no genuine responsibility in the world, unless we recognize the breach which already separates us from it. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus says to anyone who uses their faith or lack of faith to excuse their acts of disobedience to his call: First obey, do the external works, let go of what binds you, give up what is separating you from God's will! Do not say, I do not have the faith for that. You will not have it so long as you remain disobedient, so long as you will not take that first step. Do not say, I have faith, so I do not have to take the first step. You do not have faith, because and so long as you will not take that first step. Instead, you have hardened yourself in disbelief under the appearance of humble faith. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Because I am a Christian, therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God's Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God. And, as a Christian, I learn to know the Holy Scriptures in no other way than by hearing the Word preached and by prayerful meditation. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Man seeks, in his manhood, not orders, not laws and peremptory dogmas, but counsel from one who is earnest in goodness and faithful in friendship, making man free. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Self-denial means knowing only Christ, no longer knowing oneself. It means no longer seeing oneself, only him who is going ahead, no longer seeing the way which is too difficult for us. Self-denial says only: he is going ahead; hold fast to him. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone. He knows that God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all. The Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God's claims and God's justification. He lives wholly by God's Word pronounced upon him, whether that Word declares him guilty or innocent. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

...grown up with very bad contemporary literature, and they find it much more fifficult to approach earlier writing than we do. The more we have known of the really good things, the more insipid the thin lemonade of later literature becomes, sometimes almost to the point of making us sick. Do you know a work of literature written in the last, say, fifteen years that you think has any lasting quality? I don't. It is partly idle chatter, partly propaganda, partly self-pitying sentimentality, but there is no insight, no ideas, no clarity, no substance and almost always the language is bad and constrained. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What is the "extraordinary"? It is the love of Jesus Christ himself, love that goes to the cross in suffering obedience. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are doing God a service in this, but actually they are disdaining God's "crooked yet straight path" (Gottfried Arnold). They do not want a life that is crooked and balked. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

May God in his mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may he lead us to himself. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[in] the whole of world history there is always only one really significant hour
the present ... [I]f you want to find eternity, you must serve the times. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession ... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The morning prayer determines the day. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

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

If my sinfulness appears to me in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The life of discipleship is not the hero-worship we would pay to a good master, but obedience to the Son of God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

With the birth of Jesus, the great kingdom of peace has begun. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer