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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

Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Politics Power Responsibility
A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Guilty Love People Reality Religious Responsibility
Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to each of us.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Community Ourselves Religious
Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Darkness Eyes God Leaving Light Ourselves
So many people come to church with a genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we are making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Comfortable Desire Difficult Feeling Home People
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Children Kind Leaving Moral World
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
The truth of the matter is that the whole world has already been turned upside down by the work of Jesus Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Religious Truth World
Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Death Love Man Old Reflection
Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Himself Religion Worth
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
Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Control Exercise Life
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Funny Serious
Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Tears Word
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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