Reflection on Course
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DIETRICHBONHOEFFERQUOTES1.docxDIETRICH BONHOEFFER QUOTES:
1. “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”
2. “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
3. “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
4. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
5. “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”
6. “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... this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.”
8. "May we be enabled to say 'No' to sin and 'Yes' to the sinner.”
9. “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
10. "In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. . . . The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought that takes success for its standard.”
11. “The community of the saints is not an 'ideal' community consisting of perfect and sinless men and women, where there is no need of further repentance. No, it is a community which proves that it is worthy of the gospel of forgiveness by constantly and sincerely proclaiming God's forgiveness. ”
12. The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.
13. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
14. “One act of obedience is worth a hundred sermons.”
15. “When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”
16. Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.
17. “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others . . . not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.”
18. “We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?"
19. Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. Do not defend God’s word, but testify to it. Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity.
20. “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”
21. “It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.”
22. “I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.”
23. “God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.”
