A Remarkable Life
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
was a Lutheran
minister. Raised in
Berlin, Bonhoeffer was
one of the few
clergymen who
opposed Adolph Hitler
and the rise of Nazism
in 1930’s Germany.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Late in World War II, Bonhoeffer was
executed by the Nazi SS on
April 9, 1945
He was 39 years of age.
11 days later, the American Army liberated
the Flossenberg Concentration Camp
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
When God calls a
man, he bids him
come and die.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
The church can at times, like Christ
himself, be without a roof over its head.
This must be so.
Real secularity consists in the church
being able to renounce all privileges and
all its property but never Christ’s word
and the forgiveness of sins.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
The exclusion of the weak and
insignificant, the seemingly useless
people, from a Christian community
may actually mean the exclusion
of Christ.
In the poor brother Christ is knocking
at the door.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
In the birth of Jesus Christ God
took on humanity, not just a
single man.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
It is the voice of the church that is
heard in singing together.
It is not you that sings, it is the church
that is singing and you, as a member,
may share in the church’s song.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Through confession the break-through to
community takes place.
Sin demands to have a man by himself.
It withdraws him from community.
The more isolated a person is, the more
destructive will be the power of sin
over him.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Christians belong not in the seclusion of a
cloistered life but in the midst of enemies.
There they find their mission, their work.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Decisions which our work demands
will be simpler and easier when they
are made, not in the fear of men, but
in the presence of the Lord.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
God is closer to us
than the past.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Cheap grace is grace without
discipleship, grace without the cross,
grace without the living, incarnate
Jesus Christ.
Costly grace is the gospel which must
be sought again and again, the gift
which has to be asked for, the door at
which one must knock.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Grace is costly, because it was costly to
God, because it costs God the life of
God’s son, “you were bought with a price”
Nothing should be cheap to us which is
costly to God.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
There is no sin in thought, word, or
deed, no matter how personal or
secret, that does not inflict injury upon
the whole fellowship.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
The Christian belongs, not in the
seclusion of a cloistered life, but in
the thick of foes.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Grace is free, but it is
not cheap.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
God does not want me to mold others
into the image that seems good to me,
that is, into my own image.
God creates every person in the image
of God’s Son, the Crucified, and this
image, likewise, looked strange and
ungodly to me before I grasped it.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Christian brotherhood is not an ideal;
but a divine reality.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
If we are to learn what God promises,
and what he fulfills, we must
persevere in quiet meditation on the
life, sayings, deeds, sufferings, and
death of Jesus.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Jesus won power and space in this
world by his weakness.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Christians must bear the burdens of
each other.
Only as a burden is the other really a
brother or sister…
and not just a person to be controlled.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
“But I say to you, Love your enemies; bless
those who curse you, do good to those
who hate you, and pray for those who
abuse and persecute you.”
Matthew 5:43-44
Loving sisters and brothers is a
commandment that could be misunderstood.
Loving enemies makes unmistakably clear
what Jesus intends.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
Who indeed could be more worth our
love, who could stand in greater need
of our love than those who hate?
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
This is the end, but
for me it is the
beginning of life.
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939
The blood of the martyrs is the seed
of the church.
Tertullian
Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1939