01c. 1925 ADAfter death something new begins, over which all powers of the world of death have no more might.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
02c. 1925 ADThe desire we so often hear expressed today for “episcopal figures,” “priestly men,” “authoritative personalities” springs frequently enough from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human authority, because the genuine authority of service appears to be so unimpressive.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
03c. 1925 ADThe cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
04c. 1925 ADSo many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
05c. 1925 ADIf there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
06c. 1925 ADThe figure of the crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
07c. 1925 AD[God says] Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend - it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
08c. 1925 ADThe temptation of Christ was harder, unspeakably harder, than the temptation of Adam; for Adam carried nothing in himself which could have given the tempter a claim and power over him. But Christ bore in himself the whole burden of the flesh, under the curse, under condemnation; and yet his temptation was henceforth to bring help and salvation to all flesh.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
09c. 1925 AD[Christ] is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
10c. 1925 ADWhat determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
11c. 1925 ADAnything 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 / quote ↗
12c. 1925 ADEvery cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed, it poisons the Christianity community.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
13c. 1925 ADGod travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
14c. 1925 ADOur community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to each of us.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
15c. 1925 ADA prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of AdventDietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
17c. 1925 ADA love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
18c. 1925 ADNot everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
19c. 1925 ADNot in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
20c. 1925 ADGod has prepared for Himself one great song of praise throughout eternity, and those who enter the community of God join in this song. It is the song that the “morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” at the creation of the world. (Job 38:7). It is the victory song of the children of Israel after passing through the Red Sea, the Magnificat of Mary after the annunciation, the song of Paul and Silas in the night of prison, the song of the singers on the sea of glass after their rescue, the “song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” (Rev. 15:3) It is the song of the heavenly fellowship.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
21c. 1925 ADIn the New Testament our enemies are those who harbour hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility. The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behaviour must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus; it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
22c. 1925 ADIt is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
23c. 1925 ADTime is lost when we have not lived a full human life time unenriched by experience creative endeavor enjoyment and suffering.Dietrich Bonhoeffer / quote ↗
24c. 1925 ADOne'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 / quote ↗
