Quote

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

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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
Contrary
Validation
Use
Canon
Place
Imply
Doe
Rejection
Time
Limitation
Ethical
Phenomenon
Canons
Shoot
Sparrows

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.
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Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
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God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.
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It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.
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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.
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God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.
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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 of the Church, may share in its song.
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Only the suffering God can help.
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Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross he waited until one of them turned to him.
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Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian's duty to bear.
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Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.
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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.
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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.
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The gift of Christ is not the Christian religion, but the grace and love of God which culminate in the cross.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
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The biggest mistake you can make in your life is to be always afraid of making a mistake.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
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Each morning is a new beginning of our life. Each day is a finished whole. The present day marks the boundary of our cares and concerns. It is long enough to find God or lose Him, to keep faith or fall into disgrace.
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Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all to do so would be sin. ... We cannot rightly acknowledge the gifts of God unless we acknowledge the Mediator for whose sake alone they are given to us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer