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The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Death Enemy Fight Grace
I wonder why it is that we find some days so much more oppressive than others, for no apparent reason. Is it growing pains – or spiritual trial? Once they’re over, the world looks quite a different place again.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Different Growth Myself Oppression Pain Place Quite Reason Spiritual World
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Funny Serious
In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Deal Gratitude Greatness Hard Life Ordinary Receive Rich
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Love Marriage Yourself
No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Enemy Greatness Love Ourselves Sacrifice
Time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Important Philosophy Time Value Worth
Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Himself Justice Myself Peace Worth
We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence God History Judgement Need Sin
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Responsibility
Being free means being free for the other, because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Freedom Himself Myself Relationship
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Death Man Spiritual
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

Break Death Defeat Human Life Light Morning Remember Rise Sin
If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Appearance Myself Person Possible Recognition Serious Sin Worst
A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Freedom Hope Oneself Photograph Prison Wait
The fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Beyond Expression Human Ourselves Sing Talk
Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Compassionate Path Sin
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Ideal Love Pain Reality World
There is a wrong way of staying in the world and a wrong way of fleeing from it. In both cases we are fashioning ourselves according to the world.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Fashion Ourselves Stay World Wrong
Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Politics Power Responsibility
Not to speak is to speak.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Deep One Liner Talk
Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Tears Word
Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe God Life Yourself
Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Deep Religious Value Worth
A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence God Idol
In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Achievement Easy Gratitude Hard Help Important Life Rich
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Ourselves Path People

The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

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The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

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