WHERE TRUE WISDOM LIES

'...to deviate from the truth for the sake of some prospect of hope of our own can never be wise, however slight the deviation may be. It is not our judgment of the situation which can show us what is wise, but only the truth of the Word of God. Here alone lies the power of God's faithfulness and help. It will always be true that the wisest course for the disciple is always to abide soley by the Word of God in all simplicity.' 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Eugene H Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p.30. 

A MOTIVATION TO THANKFULNESS

'Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things.'
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p.17.

CHRISTIANITY MEANS COMMUNITY

'Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.'
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p.10. 

BODILY PRESENCE MATTERS

'The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians. Man was created a body, the Son of God appeared on earth in the body, he was raised in the body, in the sacrament receives the Lord Jesus in the body, and the resurrection of the dead will bring about the perfected fellowship of God's spiritual-physical creatures. The believer therefore lauds the Creator, the Redeemer, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the bodily presence of a brother.' 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p.9. 

WHY BODIES MATTER

'It is my body that separates me in space from other men and that presents me as a man to other men.' 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Craig G Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell, p.213. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHURCH HISTORY

'Church history is the hidden center of world history.' 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Craig G Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell, p.211. 

LAW & GRACE

'It is only when one submits to the law that one can speak of grace...I don't think it is Christian to want to get to the New Testament too soon and too directly.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in John Stott, Galatians, p.93.  

FEAR

'...the first command of the gospel. "Fear God and you will have nothing less to fear. Don't fear other people. Don't fear violence and power, even when it comes to you personally and can rob you of your life. Don't fear the high and mighty in the world. Don't fear yourself. Don't fear your sins. All these feras will die. From all these fears you will be set free. For they are no longer there. But fear God and him alone. For he has the power over all the powers of this world. The whole world is in fear of God. He has the power to give us life or to destroy us. All other powers are a mere game. God alone is real, seriously real. Fear God seriously and "give him the glory."'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.111.

OTHER RELIGIONS

'...though there be thousands of religions and viewpoints and opinions and philosophies in the world, and though they construct the most attractive of ideologies, and though the hearts of the people are moved and won over by them, they are all shattered by death. They must be broken because they are not true. Only the gospel remains.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.110.

JESUS

'There are only two places where the powerful and great in this world lose their courage, tremble in the depths of their souls, and become truly afraid. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ.'

CHRISTMAS

'When God chose Mary for his instrument, when God himself in the manger at Bethlehem decided to come into this world, that was no romantic family portrait, but the beginning of a total turning point, a new ordering of all things on this earth. If we want to partcipate in this Advent and Christmas happening, we cannot simply be like spectators at a theater performance, enjoying all the familiar scenes, but we must ourselves become part of this activity, which is taking place in this "changing of all things." We must have our part in this drama. The spectator becomes an actor in the play. We cannot withdraw ourselves from it.'  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.100.

GRACE

'...God's gracious will is to love the humble and lowly, the insignificant. He chose to make them great. Mary, living in the faith of the Old Testament and hoping for her redeemer, this humble working man's wife becomes the mother of God. Christ the son of the of a poor working man's wife from the East End of London! Christ in the manger...God is not ashamed to be with those of humble state. He goes into the midst of it all, chooses one person to be his instrument, and does his miracle there, where one least expects it. He loves the lost, forgotten, the insignificant, the outcasts, the weak, and the broken. Where men say "lost," he says "found;" where men say "condemned," he says "redeemed;" where men say, "no," he says "yes." Where men look with indifferencve or superiority, he looks with burning love, such as nowhere else is to be found. Where men say, "contemptible!," God cries "blessed." When we reach such a point in our lives at which we are not only ashamed of ourselves, but believe God is ashamed of us too, when we feel so far from God, more that we have ever felt in our lives, then and precisely then, God is nearer to us than he ever has been. It is then he breaks into our lives. It is then that he lets us know that that feeling of despair is taken away from us, so that we may grasp the wonder of his love, his nearness to us, and his grace.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Sermons, p.99. 

FREEDOM

'If you would find freedom, learn above all to discipline your senses and your soul. Be not led hither and thither by your desires and your members. Keep your spirit and your body chaste, wholly subject to you, and obediently seeking the goal that is set before you. None can learn the secret of freedom, save by discipline.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p.161.

SUFFERING

'I have never realized so clearly what the Bible and Luther mean by spiritual trial. Quite suddenly, for no apparent reason, whether physical or psychological, the peace and placidity which have been a mainstay hitherto begin to waver, and the heart, in Jeremiah's expressive phrase, becomes that defiant and despondent thing one cannot fathom. It is like an invasion from outside, as though evil powers were trying to deprive one of life's dearest treasures. But it is a wholesome and necessary experience which helps one to a better understanding of human life.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p.17.

THE CHURCH

'The essence of the church is not to practice theology but to believe and obey the word of God.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p.101.

PRAYER

'We pray to God because we believe in him through Jesus Christ; that is to say, our prayer can never be an entreaty to God, for we have no need to come to him in that way. We are privileged to know that he knows our needs before we ask him. This is what gives Christian prayer its boundless confidence and its joyous certainty. 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 and touches the heart of the Father who knew us long before we came to him.

Genuine prayer is never "good works", an exercise or a pious attitude, but it is always the prayer of a child to a Father. Hence it is never given to self-display, whether before God, ourselves, or other people. If God were ignorant of our needs, we should have to think out beforehand how we should tell him about them, what we should tell him, and whether we should tell him or not. Thus faith, which is the mainspring of Christian prayer, excludes all reflection and premeditation.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p.109.

MARRIAGE

'A woman who seeks to dominate her husband dishonours not only him but herself as well, just as the man who does not love his wife as he should dishonors himself as well as her, and both dishonour the glory of God which is meant to rest upon the state of matrimony. There is something wrong with a world in which the woman's ambition is to be like a man, and in which the man regards the woman as the toy of his lust for power and freedom. It is a sign of social disintegration when the women's service is thought to be degrading, and when the man who is faithful to his wife is looked upon as a weakling or a fool.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'A Wedding Sermon ' in Letters & Papers from Prison, p.151.

MARRIAGE

'...the privilege and the promise of marriage are higher than the sanctity, privilege and promise of love. It is not your love which sustains the marriage, but from now on the marriage that sustains your love.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'A Wedding Sermon' in Letters & Papers from Prison, p.150.

DEATH

'No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence.

Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty of fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal? That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up - that is for young and old alike to think about. Why are we so afraid when we think about death?...Death is only dreadful for those who live in fear and dread 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 realise 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 whole world?

Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvellous, that we can transform death.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, p.531.

ETHICS

'Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand - from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: "How can I be good?" and "How can I do something good?" Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: "What is the will of God?"'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, p.468.