Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Age: 39 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 4
Died: 1945
Died: April 8
Pastor
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Theologian
Breslau
Bonhoeffer
People
Brother
Exclusion
Community
Seemingly
Poor
Knocking
Actually
Insignificant
Christian
Useless
Christ
Door
May
Weak
Mean
Doors

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Image
Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
God has willed that we should seek and find God's living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
Thinking in terms of two realms understands the paired concepts worldy-Christia n, natural-superna tural, profane-sacred, rational-revela tions, as ultimate static opposites...and fails to recognize the original unity of these opposites in the Christ-reality.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
We should find God in what we do know, not in what we don't not in outstanding problems, but in those we have already solved.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
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
Image
It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The Christian must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love. His behavior must be determined not by the way others treat him, but by the treatment he himself receives from Jesus it has only one source, and that is the will of Jesus.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The child asks of the Father whom he knows. Thus, the essence of Christian prayer is not general adoration, but definite, concrete petition. The right way to approach God is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
God is not free from human beings but for them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on the contrary, its validation. One does not use canons to shoot sparrows.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Image
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.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer