Thielicke Helmut Quotes & Sayings

When the drama of history is over, Jesus Christ will stand alone on the stage. All the great figures of history ... will realize that they have been but actors in a drama produced by another. — Helmut Thielicke

When God forgives us for hitting Him with a club we should manage to put up with the pin pricks we get from our fellows. — Helmut Thielicke

Speaking figuratively, the study of theology often produces overgrown youths whose internal organs have not correspondingly developed. This is a characteristic of adolescence. There is actually something like theological puberty. — Helmut Thielicke

What is the greatest deficiency among human Chrsitians? They have an inadequate view of human suffering. — Helmut Thielicke

The great German scholar Helmut Thielicke once said that a person who speaks to this hour's need will always be skirting the edge of heresy, but only the person who risks those heresies can gain the truth. — Rob Bell

The way he stares at me - it's as if he doesn't even see the outside anymore. His eyes pierce me as if he can see my soul and the thought terrifies me. — Katie McGarry

I don't believe that God is a fussy faultfinder in dealing with theological ideas. He who provides forgiveness for a sinful life will also surely be a generous judge of theological reflection. Even an orthodox theologian can be spiritually dead, while perhaps a heretic crawls on forbidden bypaths to the sources of life. — Helmut Thielicke

A theological thought can breathe only in the atmosphere of dialogue with God. — Helmut Thielicke

A church is in a bad way when it banishes laughter from the sanctuary and leaves it to the cabaret, the nightclub and the toastmasters. — Helmut Thielicke

You can set up an altar to God in your minds by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft. — Saint John Chrysostom

The doubters are always more blessed than the mere fellow travelers in faith. For they are the only ones who fully learn that their Lord is stronger than any doubt and any hell of despair. — Helmut Thielicke

It is a mistake for anyone who is just in this stage to appear before a church as a teacher. He has outgrown the naivete with which in young people's work he might by all means have taken this part. He has not yet come to that maturity which would permit him to absorb into his own life and reproduce out of the freshness of his own personal faith the things which he imagines intellectually and which are accessible to him through reflection. We must have patience here and be able to wait. For the reasons I have mentioned I do not tolerate sermons by first-semester young theological students swaddled in their gowns. One ought to be able to keep still. During the period when the voice is changing we do not sing, and during this formative period in the life of the theological student he does not preach. — Helmut Thielicke

Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he could free him and bring him back to his real self. Jesus was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud. — Helmut Thielicke

It is also possible to say precisely why. Truth seduces us very easily into a kind of joy of possession: I have comprehended this and that, learned it, understood it. Knowledge is power. I am therefore more than the other man who does not know this and that. I have greater possibilities and also greater temptations. Anyone who deals with truth - as we theologians certainly do - succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the possessor. But love is the opposite of the will to possess. It is self-giving. It boasteth not itself, but humbleth itself. — Helmut Thielicke

And so they easily suppose that this truce, owing to helplessness, is victory and that they have convinced the other man. But in fact, instead of winning him over, they have merely applied a kind of shock therapy - only it was never 'therapy.' They have smothered the first little flame of a man's own spiritual life and a first shy question with the fire extinguisher of their erudition. By such performances a person can really be smothered and strangled! — Helmut Thielicke

I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens its anesthetic power. It's good for small fears; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and the slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.
("New York Blues") — Cornell Woolrich

The Gospel must be repeatedly forwarded to a new address because the recipient is repeatedly changing places of residence. — Helmut Thielicke

While I agree completely that attracting good teachers is difficult, and we need to spend more time doing that - in part by paying them more money - I don't think there's any evidence for the idea that somehow tenure attracts good teachers. In fact, I think the evidence is to the contrary. — David Boies

My plea is simply this: every theological idea which makes an impression upon you must be regarded as a challenge to your faith. Do not assume as a matter of course that you believe whatever impresses you theologically and enlightens you intellectually. Otherwise suddenly you are believing no longer in Jesus Christ, but in Luther, or in one of your other theological teachers. — Helmut Thielicke

Tell me how much you know of the sufferings of your fellow man and I will tell you how much you have loved them. — Helmut Thielicke

Man is not valuable because he loves God. Man is valuable because God loves him. — Helmut Thielicke

The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret or conscious desire to carve words on a tombstone: to the memory of a town forever vanished, to the memory of a childhood in exile, to the memory of all those I loved and who, before I could tell them I loved them, went away. — Elie Wiesel

The gospel must be preached afresh and told in new ways to each generation, since every generation has its own unique questions. The gospel must constantly be forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing his place of address. — Helmut Thielicke

There's no such thing as "just a domestic". — Patrick Stewart

The Christian stands, not under the dictatorship of a legalistic 'you ought,' but in the magnetic field of Christian Freedom, under the empowering of the 'You may.' — Helmut Thielicke