Metaxas Quotes & Sayings

But how can we tally what an achievement it was to endure what Jackie Robinson endured those first few years? It was an incalculable and heroic sacrifice that can never be reckoned or understood by any conventional standards. Robinson did what he agreed to do when he met that day with Branch Rickey, and he changed the game forever. It was a singular feat of such great moral strength that all athletic strength must pale in comparison. With God's help, one man lifted up a whole people and pulled a whole nation into the future. — Eric Metaxas

Self-government will not work unless the citizens bear the responsibility to vote in such a way that continues their freedoms and their ability to have free elections, that continues their economic prosperity. They have to vote in a way that does not trade the future for the present. This — Eric Metaxas

He had theologically redefined the Christian life as something active, not reactive. It had nothing to do with avoiding sin or with merely talking or teaching or believing theological notions or principles or rules or tenets. It had everything to do with living one's whole life in obedience to God's call through action. It did not merely require a mind, but a body too. It was God's call to be fully human, to live as human beings obedient to the one who had made us, which was the fulfillment of our destiny. It was not a cramped, compromised, circumspect life, but a life lived in a kind of wild, joyful, full-throated freedom - that was what it was to obey God. — Eric Metaxas

Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death. - DIETRICH BONHOEFFER — Eric Metaxas

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

It must be made quite clear - terrifying though it is - that we are immediately faced with the decision: National Socialist or Christian ... — Eric Metaxas

while the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or unjust." He — Eric Metaxas

Little did these theologically ignorant Nazis know that the man with whom they were dealing had worked out a theological defense of deception against the likes of them. In some ways he was their worst nightmare. He was not a "worldly" or "compromised" pastor, but a pastor whose very devotion to God depended on his deceiving the evil powers ranged against him. He was serving God by taking them all for a long ride. — Eric Metaxas

Belief in God is an act of faith. But so is believing our existence is simply the result of chance. — Eric Metaxas

Anyway, what do happiness and unhappiness mean? They depend so little on circumstances and so much more on what goes on inside us. I — Eric Metaxas

Today, Wilberforce University welcomes many of America's poorest and most underserved populations and transforms their educational dreams into realities. — Eric Metaxas

However thankful we may be for all our personal pleasures, we mustn't for a moment lose sight of the great things that we're living for, and they must shed light rather than gloom on your joy. — Eric Metaxas

Freedom as a possession is a doubtful thing for a church; freedom must be won under the compulsion of a necessity. Freedom for the church comes from the necessity of the Word of God. Otherwise it becomes arbitrariness and ends in a great many new ties. Whether — Eric Metaxas

Each era has the fatal hubris to believe that it has once and for all climbed to the top of the mountain and can see everything as it is, from the highest and most objective vantage point possible. — Eric Metaxas

The lesson in all this is that to pit women against men is a form of denigration of women, as though their measure must be determined by masculine standards. The — Eric Metaxas

We can pray only in Jesus Christ, with whom we shall also be heard. — Eric Metaxas

so true is it that a gracious hand leads us in ways that we know not, and blesses us not only without, but even against, our plans and inclinations. — Eric Metaxas

Faith is either something that informs one at all times or it isn't anything at all, really. When the Chinese government tells its citizens that they can worship in a certain building on a certain day, but once they leave that building they must bow to the secular orthodoxy of the state, you have a cynical lie at work. They've substituted a toothless "freedom of worship" for "freedom of religion". — Eric Metaxas

Just ten years ago, probably the most prominent atheist of the twentieth century, Antony Flew, concluded that a God must have designed the universe. It was shocking news and made international headlines. Flew came to believe that the extraordinarily complex genetic code in DNA simply could not be accounted for naturalistically. It didn't make logical sense to him that it had happened merely by chance, via random mutations. It is a remarkable thing that Flew had the humility and intellectual honesty to do a public about-face on all he had stood for and taught for five decades. — Eric Metaxas

Adams understood that the secret to self-government is that the people must themselves be self-governing, which is to say they must be motivated by something beyond the law. — Eric Metaxas

It is sufficient for us that we witness their humiliation," he said. "Posterity will huzza for us."32 — Eric Metaxas

A state which which includes within itself a terrorized Church has lost its most faithful servant. — Eric Metaxas

The Gospel of Christ was the most powerful sociological leveler in history, — Eric Metaxas

The worlds of folklore and religion were so mingled in early twentieth venture German culture that even families who didn't go to church were often deeply Christian. — Eric Metaxas

When someone asked Bonhoeffer whether he shouldn't join the German Christians in order to work against them from within, he answered that he couldn't. 'If you board the wrong train,' he said, 'it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction. — Eric Metaxas

But we know that true grace comes to us by costly sacrifice. And if God was willing to go to the cross and endure such pain and absorb such a cost in order to save us, then we must live sacrificially as we serve others. Anyone who truly understands how God's grace comes to us will have a changed life. That's the gospel, not salvation by law, or by cheap grace, but by costly grace. Costly grace changes you from the inside out. Neither — Eric Metaxas

Glory, glory, said the Bee, Hallelujah, said the Flea. Praise the Lord, remarked the Wren. At springtime all is born-again. — Eric Metaxas

The battle for our culture must be waged at the level of the imagination. — Eric Metaxas

Atheism tells him what he isn't, and like all of us he yearns to know what he is. — Eric Metaxas

Religion is the most fragile of all freedoms. And that's because it is the most threatening to those in power. — Eric Metaxas

He could appreciate the value in something, even if he ultimately rejected that something - and could see the errors and flaws in something, even if he ultimately accepted that something. — Eric Metaxas

There was one activity that Bonhoeffer would enjoy in Barcelona, but could never enjoy in Berlin. That was the arte taurina (bull fighting). Though an aesthete and an intellectual, Bonhoeffer was neither effete nor squeamish. His brother Klaus arrived for a visit on Easter Saturday, and on Easter afternoon - Bonhoeffer preached that morning - they were "dragged" by a German teacher, presumably Thumm, to the "great Easter corrida." He — Eric Metaxas

Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself. — Eric Metaxas

True faith is not a leap into the dark; it's a leap into the light — Eric Metaxas

God's standard of truth entailed more than merely "not lying." In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "You have heard it said ... but I say unto you." Jesus took the Old Testament laws to a deeper level of meaning and obedience, from the "letter of the Law" to the "Spirit of the Law." Following the letter of the law was the dead "religion" of which Barth, among others, had written. It was man's attempt to deceive God into thinking one was being obedient, which was a far greater deception. God always required something deeper than religious legalism. — Eric Metaxas

There were effectively only two responses to the condition of the poor in Wilberforce's day. One was to look down on them scornfully, moralistically judging them as inferior and unworthy of help. The other was to ignore them entirely, to see their plight as inevitable, part of the unavoidable price of "modern civilization." But Wilberforce would introduce a third way of responding to the situation. This response would neither judge the poor and suffering nor ignore them, but rather would reach out to them and help them up, so to speak. — Eric Metaxas

The message of grace," he said, ". . . pronounces upon the death of people and nations its eternal: I have loved you from eternity; stay with me, and you will live. — Eric Metaxas

the brilliant balance of the gospel that Luther so persistently expounded - "We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith which is alone. — Eric Metaxas

Bonhoeffer knew that twisting the Truth to sell it more effectively was inexcusable. For Bonhoeffer the challenge was to present the Truth as purely as possible without attempting to help it along or dress it up. — Eric Metaxas

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

It's an interesting thing that we have not copyrighted our ideas about liberty or tried to charge others to use them, or even to credit us when they do so. We've given these ideas away freely. To what end? We have not calculated the benefit to ourselves much. Some have said that we do what we do for purely selfish or mercenary reasons, that we fought in Iraq, for example, because of our oil interests. Such views are not only deeply cynical but also fail to account for much else that we do. Are we being self-serving in what we've done in Africa to combat AIDS? Are we being self-serving in sending ships and supplies to disaster areas around the world? Unless we are hopelessly bound by cynicism, we have to acknowledge that the United States has been remarkably and consistently generous in sharing what it has, whether material things or ideas. — Eric Metaxas

Things you might want to talk about in such a group? — Eric Metaxas

With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made "legal." Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself. — Eric Metaxas

Here was the rub: one must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin. One must sacrifice oneself utterly to God's purposes, even to the point of possibly making moral mistakes. One's obedience to God must be forward-oriented and zealous and free, and to be a mere moralist or pietist would make such a life impossible. — Eric Metaxas

By praying "his" prayers - the Psalms of the Old Testament, which Jesus prayed - we effectively piggyback on them all the way to heaven. — Eric Metaxas

If our suffering has a purpose, it is infinitely easier to bear than if our suffering has no purpose and no larger meaning. When a mother endures childbirth, she knows that it is leading to something life changing and glorious. — Eric Metaxas

The Nazis were anti-Christian, but they would pretend to be Christians as long as it served their purposes of getting theologically ignorant Germans on their side against the Jews. — Eric Metaxas

Bonhoeffer thought of death as the last station on the road to freedom. — Eric Metaxas

Speak out for those who cannot speak - who in the church today realizes that this is the very least that the Bible requires of us? — Eric Metaxas

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

Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.
How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death. — Eric Metaxas

How can you change the world? The answer: find seven women, turn them loose, and watch Satan tremble in their presence." - — Eric Metaxas

we build him a temple, but we live in our own houses." Religion — Eric Metaxas

There hardly ever seem to be "encounters" in this great country, in which the one can always avoid the other. But where there is no encounter, where liberty is the only unifying factor, one naturally knows nothing of the community which is created through encounter. The whole life together is completely different as a result. Community in our sense, whether cultural or ecclesiastical, cannot develop there. Is — Eric Metaxas

He well knew his mind's natural tendency to be endlessly on a thousand subjects at once, to flit from this to that and to the next thing to no particular purpose
indeed, he called it his butterfly mind. — Eric Metaxas

In those days," Ruth-Alice recalled, "the Nazis were always marching and saying, 'The future belongs to us! We are the future!' And we young ones who were against Hitler and the Nazis would hear this and we wondered, 'Where is our future?' But there in Finkenwalde, when I heard this man preaching, who had been captured by God, I thought: 'Here. Here is our future. — Eric Metaxas

That's the point of miracles - to point us beyond our world to another world. They are clues that that other world is not in our imaginations but is actually out there, wherever "out there" actually is. Peggy Noonan once wrote that she thought miracles existed "in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see." If miracles exist at all, they exist not for their own sake but for us, to point us toward something beyond. To someone beyond. — Eric Metaxas

This is quite characteristic of most of the churches I saw. So what stands in place of the Christian message? An ethical and social idealism borne by a faith in progress that - who knows how - claims the right to call itself "Christian." And in the place of the church as the congregation of believers in Christ there stands the church as a social corporation. Anyone — Eric Metaxas

When he said they needed to humble themselves and listen to God's commands and obey them, he was not posturing. He wanted to impart this vision of God and was saying that one must utterly trust God now and must know that hearing him is indeed all that matters. — Eric Metaxas

You can talk about right and wrong and good and bad all day long, but ultimately people need to see it. Seeing and studying the actual lives of people is simply the best way to communicate ideas about how to behave and how not to behave. We need heroes and role models. — Eric Metaxas

Let anyone using those weasel words "freedom of worship" know, they have "freedom of worship" in China and it is meaningless and it is vile. "Freedom of worship" says you may do what you like in that building on Sunday mornings or whenever you like, but when you come out you will bow to the secular orthodoxy of the state. That is the antithesis of what the Founders meant in guaranteeing "freedom of religion. — Eric Metaxas

Actions must follow what one believed, else one could not claim to believe it. — Eric Metaxas

Separation of church and state does not result in the church continuing to apply itself to its own task; it is no guarantee against secularization. Nowhere is the church more secularized than where it is separated in principle as it is here. This very separation can create an opposition, so that the church engages much more strongly in political and secular things. — Eric Metaxas

The religion of Christ," he said, "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 Christian. — Eric Metaxas

[Boenhoeffer] had an extraordinarily even temperament, capable of ignoring anger, anxiety and discouragement. He seemed unable to despise anyone. — Eric Metaxas

Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will. — Eric Metaxas

They (theological liberals)seemed to know what the answer was supposed to be and weren't much concerned with how to get there. They knew only that whatever answers the Fundamentalists came up with must be wrong. — Eric Metaxas

The family trees of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer are everywhere so laden with figures of accomplishment that one might expect future generations to be burdened by it all. But the welter of wonderfulness that was their heritage seemed to have been a boon, one that buoyed them up so that each child seems not only to have stood on the shoulders of giants but also to have danced on them. — Eric Metaxas

No one in the history of the world had ever conceived of the idea that there could be a rebellion against a leader that would end not in a new leader but in a new kind of leadership altogether - a leadership that was accountable to those whom it led. — Eric Metaxas

The word Tocqueville used was "mores" - meaning those habits "of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group." He wrote: "I considered mores to be one of the great general causes responsible for the maintenance of a democratic republic." And then he said that by the term "mores" he meant "habits of the heart." In the same book Tocqueville put it as bluntly as Franklin or Adams had, writing: "Liberty cannot be established without morality." This — Eric Metaxas

At its core, every battle worth fighting is a spiritual battle. Those men were able to succeed only because they humbled themselves and entrusted the battle to God. But — Eric Metaxas

May he at the last bind us to his triumphal carriage so that, although in bonds oppressed, we may participate in his victory! — Eric Metaxas

Real faith is never something that can be forced by the state. It's something that either be encouraged and smiled upon or discouraged and frowned-upon. Or, simply crushed — Eric Metaxas

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. Though — Eric Metaxas

If we are talking about a loving God, we are talking about a God who asks us to trust him, whether we get what we ask for or don't. But he will never force us to trust him. That is entirely up to us. We have free will and we can accept his love or reject it, or claim it doesn't exist at all. We can trust him or distrust him as we like. But if he really and truly is the God of the Bible, who loves me with an unchanging and self-sacrificial love (agape), then I really and truly can trust him in all circumstances, which is tremendously freeing. In fact, I can go one step further than trusting him. To use a biblical phrase, I can rejoice in him. But is only possible if we really do know that God has our best interests at heart at all times. Of course, we have to decide on our own whether we believe that. But if we come to see that, that is true and do allow ourselves to believe it, we are precisely where he created us to be: in his loving hands. — Eric Metaxas

The 'success' of the sermon is utterly dependent on the God who breaks through and 'grasps' us, or we cannot be 'grasped. — Eric Metaxas

What if all the myths and fairy tales were pointing to something that was not only true but also truer than anything we knew in this world, to a realm that was truer and more real? — Eric Metaxas

Ideas have far-reaching consequences, and one must be ever so careful about what one allows to lodge in one's brain. — Eric Metaxas

Einstein himself said, You can speak of the ethical foundations of science, but you cannot speak of the scientific foundations of ethics. — Eric Metaxas

If someone believes it is our faith that heals us and forgets that it is God who does it, we should ask that person how much faith Lazarus had. Remember, he was decomposing in a tomb when Jesus raised him from death. His faith obviously didn't matter. It was all God. It is God and God's grace that heals, not our prayers and not our "faith." Though we are exhorted by God to pray to him, we cannot compel him to do what we wish. DO — Eric Metaxas

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. (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, 218) — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Theology is not merely another branch of philosophy, but something else entirely. For him, philosophy was man's search for truth apart from God ... But theology begins and ends with faith in Christ, who reveals himself to man; apart from such revelation, there could be no such thing as truth. Thus the philosopher
and the theologian who operates on a philosopher's assumptions
chases his own tail and gazes at his own navel. He cannot break out of that cycle, but God, via revelation, can break in. — Eric Metaxas

She was so pure and so brave and so singular in her faith and obedience to God that, perhaps like Francis of Assisi or even like Jesus himself, she challenges many of our deepest assumptions about what a life can be. — Eric Metaxas

(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

A major theme for Bonhoeffer was that every Christian must be "fully human" by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some "spiritual" realm. To be an ethereal figure who merely talked about God, but somehow refused to get his hands dirty in the real world in which God had placed him, was bad theology. Through Christ, God had shown that he meant us to be in this world and to obey him with our actions in his word. So Bonhoeffer would get his hands dirty, not because he had grown impatient, but because God was speaking to him about further steps of obedience. — Eric Metaxas

There was only one reality, and Christ was Lord over all of it, or none. — Eric Metaxas

In 1933, one student said, Among the public, there spread the expectation that the salvation of the German people would now come from Hitler. But in the lectures we were told that salvation comes only from Jesus Christ. — Eric Metaxas

The Scriptures were plain and could not be gainsaid on this most basic point: all that was his - his wealth, his talents, his time - was not really his. It all belonged to God and had been given to him to use for God's purposes and according to God's will. God had blessed him so that he, in turn, might bless others, especially those less fortunate than himself. — Eric Metaxas

He and his allies declared that every human being was equal in God's sight and made in the image of God, and must therefore be treated with equal dignity. — Eric Metaxas

The only fight which is lost is that which we give up. — Eric Metaxas

In any case, he had long felt that Gandhi could provide some clues for him. Gandhi was not a Christian, but he lived in a community that endeavored to live by the teachings set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer wanted Christians to live that way. So he would travel to India to see it practiced by non-Christians. — Eric Metaxas

Ahoy there, Lord Pegleg!" cried the Fool. "Why are you hopping on one foot?"
"And what would you have do on one foot?" the man asked. "Pirouette? Besides, if I were to untie my other foot I would move too fast for anyone to see me. Why, I would trip over the equator in one stride."
"That's pretty quick," the Fool said.
"If you think that's quick," the man replied, "you should have seen me before the old arthritis set in. — Eric Metaxas

The cost of caring for the "incurables" was prohibitive. They must "give their lives" for the greater cause just as everyone else, and just as the parents of soldiers must "make the ultimate sacrifice" of — Eric Metaxas

Jesus was and is the enemy of dead religion. — Eric Metaxas

If you take God and faith and morality out of the equation, everything inevitably falls apart. — Eric Metaxas

She firmly believes feminism to be anti-woman because it pressures women to become more like men. Everyone — Eric Metaxas

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

It's so easy to become a grumbler, someone who condemns and carps at everything on principle and sees an ulterior motive behind it. — Eric Metaxas

Future generations would be convinced that nothing good could ever have existed in a country that produced such evil. They would think only of these evils. It would be as if these unleashed dark forces had grotesquely marched like devils on dead horses, backward through the gash in the present, and had destroyed the German past too. — Eric Metaxas

Great men like Wilberforce and Wesley had the humility and the wisdom to know that whatever strengths they had - and they had many - they could not win without a total reliance on God. At its core, every battle worth fighting is a spiritual battle. Those men were able to succeed only because they humbled themselves and entrusted the battle to God. — Eric Metaxas