black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Himself Religion Worth
One act of obedience is worth a hundred sermons.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Act Worth
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
It is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Lie Love Truth Worst
The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Divine Job
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Responsibility
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
Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Discipline God Man
[Christ] is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Man Philosophy Reality Religious
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
Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Control Exercise Life
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
Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Death Love Man Old Reflection
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 cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise godfearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Beginning End Happiness Life Ourselves Religious Unity
The world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Force Religious World

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes