Quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

About Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship became a modern classic.
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So 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

Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[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...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In 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 ...

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 nece...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

From now on there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is not at all surprising that the disciples imagined that the law had been abrogated, when Jesus made promises like this. For these promises reversed all popular notions of right and wrong, and pronounced a blessing on all that was accounted worth...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer it; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus' hands.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bless them that persecute you.' If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing us, our immediate reaction must be to lift up our hands and bless him. Our enemies are the blessed of the Lord. Their curse can do us no harm. May thei...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.' Not only do the followers of Jesus renounce their rights, they renounce their own righteousness too. They get no praise for their achievements or sacrifices. They...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They k...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The temple of God is the holy people in Jesus Christ. The Body of Christ is the living temple of God and of the new humanity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The scriptures do not present us with a series of Christian types to be imitated according to choice; they preach to us in every situation the one Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

An image needs a living object, and a copy can only be formed from a model. Either man models himself on the god of his own invention, or the true and living God moulds the human form in his image. There must be a complete transformation, a 'metamorp...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus does not impose intolerable restrictions on his disciples, he does not forbid them to look at anything, but bids them look on him. If they do that he knows that their gaze will always be pure, even when they look upon a woman.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But God does not neglect his lost creature. He plans to re-create his image in man, to recover his first delight in his handiwork. He is seeking in it his own image so that he may love it. But there is only one way to achieve this purpose and that is...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Author Bio

  • NameDietrich Bonhoeffer
  • DescriptionGerman Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
  • BornFebruary 4, 1906
  • DiedApril 9, 1945
  • CountryGermany
  • ProfessionTheologian; Philosopher
  • AwardsRighteous Among The Nations; Civil Courage Prize