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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

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

Desire Himself Oneself Person
Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Faith Greatness Learning Life Loyalty
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
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
Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Tears Word
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
This is the end. For me the beginning of life.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Beginning End Life Myself
I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Hate Himself Myself Prayer
Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Himself Ourselves
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
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
We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Learning Light People Suffering
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
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
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Discipline God Religious
Advent creates people, new people.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Creation One Liner People

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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