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

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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

Limitation Place Rejection Time
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Help Live Man
Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Discipline God Man
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
How would you expect to find community while you intentionally withdraw from it at some point? The disobedient cannot believe; only the obedient believe.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe Community Expectation
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
Time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Important Philosophy Time Value Worth
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Discipline God Religious
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
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
Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Desire Himself Oneself Person
There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Journey Travel
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
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
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
While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Goodness Job Seek
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
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
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Funny Serious
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
There can be no real attachment to the given creation, no genuine responsibility in the world, unless we recognize the breach which already separates us from it.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Attachment Creation Reality Responsibility World
Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Evil Grace Judgement Love Spiritual
The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer it; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus’ hands.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Evil Hands Himself Suffering Worst
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

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

Believe God Life Yourself
By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Grace Judgement Ourselves
A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Man People

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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