Quote

Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.

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
Cannot
Weak
Also
Exist
Without
Realize
Need
Realizing
Must
Community
Needs
Christian
Every
Strong
Elimination
Death
Fellowship

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To be sure, God shall call you, and us, only at the hour that God has chosen. Until that hour, which lies in God's hand alone, we shall be protected even in the greatest danger and from our gratitude for such protection ever new readiness surely arises for the final call
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A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own self.
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It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
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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.
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Ultimate seriousness in not without a dose of humor.
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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.
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The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the freewill offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling.
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The cross is God's truth about us, and therefore it is the only power thatcanmakeustruthful.Whenwe know the cross we are no longer afraid of the truth.
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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.
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The 'polymath' had already died out by the close of the eighteenth century, and in the following century intensive education replaced extensive, so that by the end of it the specialist had evolved. The consequence is that today everyone is a mere technician, even the artist.
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time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
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Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
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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 know only the power of Him on whom their life depends
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Every call of Christ leads into death.
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We have learnt, rather too late, that action comes, not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
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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.
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It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
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God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, he cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with his grace and love. He makes us happy as only children can be happy.
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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When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself - a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called clerical somebody), a righteous or unrighteous man,...and throws himself into the arms of God...then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, that is metanoia and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer