Quote

It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. … So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Age: 39 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 4
Died: 1945
Died: April 8
Pastor
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Theologian
Breslau
Bonhoeffer
Jesus
Enemies
Seclusion
Christian
Granted
Foes
Christ
Privilege
Commission
Living
Lived
Foe
Work
Among
Belongs
Life
Simply
Thick
Enemy
Midst
Taken
Christians
Cloistered

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.
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Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.
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The fearful danger of the present time is that above the cry for authority, we forget that man stands alone before the ultimate authority, and that anyone who lays violent hands on man here, is infringing eternal laws, and taking upon himself superhuman authority, which will eventually crush him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Comfort the troubled, and trouble the comfortable.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The Church knows nothing of a sacredness of war. The Church which prays'Our Father'asks God only for peace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Disciples will not be weakened by suffering, worn down, and embittered until they are broken. Instead, they bear suffering, by the power of him who supports them. The disciples bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the Crucified.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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God is not free from human beings but for them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Once a man has truly experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try to find anything.....It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap he does not fill it, but keeps it empty so that our communion with another may be kept alive, even at the cost of pain.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Originally man was made in the image of God, but now his likeness to God is a stolen one. As the image of God man draws his life entirely from his origin in God, but the man who has become like God has forgotten how he was at his origin and has made himself his own creator and judge.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The deceit, the lie of the Devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God's Word.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The pursuit of purity is not about the suppression of lust, but about the reorientation of one's life to a larger goal.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer