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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The truth of the matter is that the whole world has already been turned upside down by the work of Jesus Christ

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The earthly form of Christ is the form that died on the cross. The image of God is the image of Christ crucified. It is to this image that the life of the disciples must be conformed; in other words, they must be conformed to his death (Phil 3.10, Ro...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we are given all things, literally _all_ things. He will see to it that they are added unto us. If we follow Jesus and look only to His righteousness, we are in his hands and under the...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The real difference in the believer who follows Christ and has mortified his will and died after the old man in Christ, is that he is more clearly aware than other men of the rebelliousness and perennial pride of the flesh, he is conscious of his slo...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

the world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutter...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Suffering, then, is the badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master. Following Christ means passio passiva, suffering because we have to suffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes, it is not an accident, but a necessity. It is not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from this mortal life...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it. You can only learn what obedience is by obeying. It is no use asking...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Man no longer lives in the beginning--he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end. He sees that ...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible...The...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God loves his work and therefore wills to preserve it. Creation and preservation are two aspects of the one activity of God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Events cast their shadows ahead; before a harsh winter, wild animals grow thicker fur, and the beaver puts on a thicker layer of fat. What kind of times and what sort of tasks can lie ahead for a generation that must think so harshly, even at such a ...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light becau...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A 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 Advent

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Advent creates people, new people.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the...

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