1. Zitate
  2. Autoren
  3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Zitate
seite 5
20 inspirierende Weisheiten zur Dankbarkeit, Liebe und menschlichen Erfahrung

Erleben Sie die tiefe Weisheit von Dietrich Bonhoeffers kraftvollen Zitaten. Finden Sie Einsicht und Inspiration in seinen Gedanken über Dankbarkeit, Empathie, Handeln, Liebe und die Umarmung der menschlichen Erfahrung. Lassen Sie sich von seinen Worten erleuchten und motivieren.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer war ein lutherischer Theologe und aktiver Widerstandskämpfer gegen den Nationalsozialismus. Er setzte sich öffentlich gegen die Judenverfolgung ein und kämpfte im Kirchenkampf gegen die Deutschen Christen und den Arierparagraphen. Zudem leitete er das Predigerseminar der Bekennenden Kirche in Finkenwalde und schloss sich später dem Widerstand um Wilhelm Franz Canaris an. Trotz Redeverbot und Schreibverbot wurde Bonhoeffer 1943 verhaftet und 1945 auf Befehl Adolf Hitlers hingerichtet.

Bonhoeffer betonte als unabhängiger Theologe die Gegenwart von Jesus Christus in der weltweiten Gemeinschaft der Christen, die Bedeutung der Bergpredigt, Nachfolge Jesu sowie die Einheit von Glauben und Handeln. Besonders während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus lebte er diese Prinzipien vor. In seinen Gefängnisbriefen entwickelte er Ideen für eine künftige Ausrichtung der Kirche, die Solidarität mit den Bedürftigen betont und eine nichtreligiöse Interpretation von Bibel, kirchlicher Tradition und Gottesdienst fördert.

✵ 4. Februar 1906 – 9. April 1945   •   Andere Namen Дитрих Бонхеффер
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Foto
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: 181   Zitate 171   Gefällt mir

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Berühmte Zitate

„Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben,
Behütet und getröstet wunderbar,
So will ich diese Tage mit euch leben
Und mit euch gehen in ein neues Jahr.

Noch will das alte unsre Herzen quälen,
Noch drückt uns böser Tage schwere Last.
Ach, Herr, gib unsern aufgeschreckten Seelen
Das Heil, für das du uns geschaffen hast.

Und reichst du uns den schweren Kelch, den bittern
Des Leids, gefüllt bis an den höchsten Rand,
So nehmen wir ihn dankbar ohne Zittern
Aus deiner guten und geliebten Hand.

Doch willst du uns noch einmal Freude schenken
An dieser Welt und ihrer Sonne Glanz,
Dann wolln wir des Vergangenen gedenken
Und dann gehört dir unser Leben ganz.

Lass warm und hell die Kerzen heute flammen,
Die du in unsre Dunkelheit gebracht.
Führ, wenn es sein kann, wieder uns zusammen.
Wir wissen es, dein Licht scheint in der Nacht.

Wenn sich die Stille nun tief um uns breitet,
So lass uns hören jenen vollen Klang
Der Welt, die unsichtbar sich um uns weitet,
All deiner Kinder hohen Lobgesang.

Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen,
Erwarten wir getrost, was kommen mag.
Gott ist bei uns am Abend und am Morgen
Und ganz gewiss an jedem neuen Tag.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

„Die Kraft des Menschen ist das Gebet. Beten ist Atem holen aus Gott. Beten heißt sich Gott anvertrauen. Das Gebet ist das Herz christlichen Lebens.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen: Mit Aquarellen von Andreas Felger

„Es gibt erfülltes Leben trotz vieler unerfüllter Wünsche.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

an Eberhard Bethge, 19. März 1944, DBW 8 (WE), S. 359.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer zitat: „Jesus ruft nicht zu einer neuen Religion auf, sondern zum Leben.“

„Jesus ruft nicht zu einer neuen Religion auf, sondern zum Leben.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Brief vom 18. Juli 1944 an Eberhardt Bethge; in: D. Bonhoeffer. Widerstand und Ergebung. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft, hrsg. von Eberhardt Bethge. 2. Aufl. 1977, S. 396, DBW 8, S. 537

„Wer bin ich? Sie sagen mir oft,
ich träte aus meiner Zelle
gelassen und heiter und fest
Wie ein Gutsherr aus seinem Schloss.

Wer bin ich? Sie sagen mir oft,
ich spräche mit meinen Bewachern
frei und freundlich und klar,
als hätte ich zu gebieten.

Wer bin ich? Sie sagen mir auch,
ich trüge die Tage des Unglücks
gleichmütig, lächelnd und stolz,
wie einer der Siegen gewohnt ist.

Bin ich das wirklich, was andere von mir sagen?
Oder bin ich nur, was ich selbst von mir weiß?
Unruhig, sehnsüchtig, krank, wie ein Vogel im Käfig,
ringend nach Lebensatem, als würgte mir einer die Kehle,
hungernd nach Farben, nach Blumen, nach Vogelstimmen,
dürstend nach guten Worten, nach menschlicher Nähe,
zitternd vor Zorn über Willkür und kleinlichste Kränkung,
umgetrieben vom Warten auf große Dinge,
ohnmächtig bangend um Freunde in endloser Ferne,
müde und leer zum Beten, zum Denken, zum Schaffen,
matt und bereit, von allem Abschied zu nehmen?

Wer bin ich? Der oder jener?
Bin ich denn heute dieser und morgen ein andrer?
Bin ich beides zugleich? Vor Menschen ein Heuchler
und vor mir selbst ein verächtlich wehleidiger Schwächling?
Oder gleicht, was in mir noch ist, dem geschlagenen Heer,
das in Unordnung weicht vor schon gewonnenem Sieg?

Wer bin ich? Einsames Fragen treibt mit mir Spott,
Wer ich auch bin, Du kennst mich, Dein bin ich, o Gott.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Zitate und Sprüche

„Billige Gnade heißt Gnade als Schleuderware, verschleuderte Vergebung, verschleuderter Trost, verschleudertes Sakrament; Gnade als unerschöpfliche Vorratskammer der Kirche, aus der mit leichtfertigen Händen bedenkenlos und grenzenlos ausgeschüttet wird; Gnade ohne Preis, ohne Kosten.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer buch The Cost of Discipleship

Nachfolge (1937), DBW 4 (N), 29.

Vergebung

„Ein Gutseinwollen an sich, gewissermaßen als Selbstzweck, als Lebensberuf, verfällt der Ironie der Unwirklichkeit, aus dem echten Streben nach dem Guten wird hier die Streberei des Tugendboldes.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Ethik, DBW 6 (E), S. 35.

„Wenn ein Wahnsinniger mit dem Auto durch die Straßen rast, kann ich als Pastor, der anwesend ist, nicht nur die Überfahrenen trösten oder beerdigen, sondern ich muß dazwischenspringen und ihn stoppen.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

zitiert von Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, DIE ZEIT 21.07.1989 http://www.zeit.de/1989/30/was-heisst-widerstand/seite-2
"Wenn ein Wahnsinniger mit dem Auto durch die Straßen rast, kann ich mich als Christ nicht damit zufrieden geben, die Überfahrenen zu beerdigen und die Hinterbliebenen zu trösten, sondern ich muß dazwischen springen und ihn stoppen." - zitiert von Landesbischof Dr. Friedrich Weber in einer Ansprache zur 60. Wiederkehr des Kriegsendes am 8. Mai 2005 in St. Katharinen, Braunschweig http://www.landeskirche-braunschweig.de/uploads/tx_mitdownload/KriegsendeStKatharinenBS2005.pdf, S. 5
Zugeschrieben

„Ich glaube, daß die Bibel allein die Antwort auf alle unsere Fragen ist und daß wir nur anhaltend und demütig zu fragen brauchen, um die Antwort von ihr zu bekommen.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

an Rüdiger Schleicher, 8. April 1936, DBW 14, S. 144 f.

Über Glauben , Frage

„Im normalen Leben wird einem oft gar nicht bewußt, daß der Mensch überhaupt unendlich mehr viel mehr empfängt, als er gibt, und daß Dankbarkeit das Leben erst reich macht.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

- Brief an Karl und Paula Bonhoeffer, 13. September 1943, DBW 8 (WE), S. 157f.
Oft verkürzt zitiert als: "Dankbarkeit macht das Leben erst reich."

Über Leben , Über Menschen , Dankbarkeit

„Das ist das Ende. Für mich der Beginn des Lebens.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letzte Worte, 9. April 1945, überliefert durch Payne Best an Bischof George Bell, DBW 16, S. 468.

Über Leben

„Schlimmer ist es, wenn ein Lügner die Wahrheit sagt, als wenn ein Liebhaber der Wahrheit lügt, schlimmer wenn ein Menschenhasser Bruderliebe übt, als wenn ein Liebhaber der Menschen einmal vom Haß überwältigt wird. Besser als die Wahrheit im Munde des Lügners ist noch die Lüge, besser als die Tat der Bruderliebe des Menschenfeindes ist der Haß.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Ethik, Zusammengestellt und hrsg. von Eberhard Bethge, 12. Auflage, Kaiser, München 1998. S. 68-69; DBW (E) 6, 62f.

Über Hass , Über Menschen , Über Wahrheit , Über Lügen

„Ich glaube, dass Gott uns in jeder Notlage soviel Widerstandskraft geben will, wie wir sie brauchen. Aber er gibt sie nicht im voraus, damit wir uns nicht auf uns selbst, sondern allein auf ihn verlassen.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

aus: "Rechenschaft an der Wende zum Jahr 1943", im Gefängnis Berlin-Tegel

Über Gott , Über Glauben

„Und reichst Du uns den schweren Kelch, den bittern, // des Leids, gefüllt bis an den höchsten Rand, // so nehmen wir ihn dankbar ohne Zittern // aus Deiner guten und geliebten Hand.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben

Aus dem Gedicht "Von guten Mächten", geschrieben Ende 1944 im Kellergefängnis Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin, DBW 8 (WE), S. 607f.

Schwester , Leiden

„[…] das Reden von den menschlichen Grenzen ist mir überhaupt fragwürdig geworden […], es scheint mir immer, wir wollten dadurch nur ängstlich Raum aussparen für Gott; […].“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Brief an Eberhard Bethge vom 30. April 1944, in: Widerstand und Ergebung (hg. von Eberhard Bethge), 10. Aufl., Gütersloh 1978, S. 135.

Über Gott

„Die Zeit, in der man alles den Menschen durch Worte - seien es theologische oder fromme Worte - sagen könnte, ist vorüber; ebenso die Zeit der Innerlichkeit und des Gewissens und d. h. eben die Zeit der Religion überhaupt.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Brief an Eberhard Bethge vom 30. April 1944, DBW 8, S. 402 f.

Über Religion , Über Menschen , Zeit

„Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Werke. 18 Bände und 2 Ergänzungsbände; hg. von Eberhard Bethge u. a.; Gütersloh: Kaiser, 1986–1999“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

DBW):-

„Nicht aus dem schweren Boden
wo Blut und Geschlecht und Schwur
mächtig und heilig sind,
wo die Erde selbst
gegen Wahnsinn und
die geweihten heilgen uralten Ordnungen
hütet und schützt und rächt, —
nicht aus dem schweren Boden der Erde,
sondern aus freiem Gefallen
und freiem Verlangen des Geistes,
der nicht des Eides und des Gesetzes bedarf,
wird der Freund dem Freunde geschenkt.“

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

Schwester , Über Gesetze , Wahnsinn

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Zitate auf Englisch

“Man seeks, in his manhood,
not orders, not laws and peremptory dogmas,
but counsel from one who is earnest in goodness
and faithful in friendship,
making man free.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Who Stands Fast?, p. 5.

“At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 51.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

“The truthfulness which Jesus demands from his followers is the self-abnegation which does not hide sin. Nothing is then hidden, everything is brought forth to the light of day. In this question of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man’s whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Truthfulness, p. 138.

“A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him. “Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on the stand.” … The bushel may be the fear of men, or perhaps deliberate conformity to the world for some ulterior motive.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

exegesis of Matthew 5:13, p. 118.
Discipleship (1937), The Visible Community

“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Attributed to Bonhoeffer on the internet, but this is from a remark about him, not by him, in Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy http://books.google.com/books?id=aG0q3X8TVpsC&pg=PA486#v=onepage (2010), p. 486.
Misattributed

““Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” With each beatitude the gulf is widened between the disciples and the people, their call to come forth from the people becomes increasingly manifest. By “mourning” Jesus, of course, means doing without what the world calls peace and prosperity: He means refusing to be in tune with the world or to accommodate oneself to its standards. Such men mourn for the world, for its guilt, its fate, and its fortune.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), The Beatitudes, p. 108.

“It was the error of Israel to put the law in God’s place, to make the law their God and their God a law.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), The Righteousness of Christ, p. 122.

“From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men, for we are told to let them see our light. No. We are to hide it from ourselves. Our task is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), The Hidden Righteousness, p. 158.

“The disciples realized that they too were his enemies, and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciple’s eyes, and enables him to see his enemy as a brother.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), The Enemy, the "Extraordinary", p. 150.

“Not from the heavy soil
where blood and sex and oath
rule in their hallowed might,
where the earth itself,
guarding the primal consecrated order,
avenges wantonness and madness —
not from the heavy soil of the earth,
but from the spirit's choice and free desire, needing no oath of legal bond,
is friend bestowed on friend.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

“In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility. For Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), The Enemy, the "Extraordinary", pp. 147-148.

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

With each beatitude the gulf is widened between the disciples and the people, their call to come forth from the people becomes increasingly manifest. By “mourning” Jesus, of course, means doing without what the world calls peace and prosperity: He means refusing to be in tune with the world or to accommodate oneself to its standards. Such men mourn for the world, for its guilt, its fate, and its fortune.
Quelle: Discipleship (1937), The Beatitudes, p. 108.

“When the spirit touches
man's heart and brow
with thoughts that are lofty, bold, serene,
so that with clear eyes he will face the world
as a free man may;
when the spirit gives birth to action
by which alone we stand or fall;
when from the sane and resolute action
rises the workd that gives a a man's life
content and meaning — then would that many,
lonely and actively working,
know of the spirit that grasps and befriends him...”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remoreseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Are we still of any use?, p. 16

“What lies behind the complaint about the dearth of civil courage? In recent years we have seen a great deal of bravery and self-sacrifice, but civil courage hardly anywhere, even among ourselves. To attribute this simply to personal cowardice would be too facile a psychology; its background is quite different. In a long history, we Germans have had to learn the need for and the strength of obedience. In the subordination of all personal wishes and ideas to the tasks to which we have been called, we have seen the meaning and greatness of our lives. We have looked upwards, not in servile fear, but in free trust, seeing in our tasks a call, and in our call a vocation. This readiness to follow a command from "above" rather than our own private opinions and wishes was a sign of legitimate self-distrust. Who would deny that in obedience, in their task and calling, the Germans have again and again shown the utmost bravery and self-sacrifice? But the German has kept his freedom — and what nation has talked more passionately of freedom than the Germans, from Luther to the idealist philosophers?”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

by seeking deliverance from self-will through service to the community. Calling and freedom were to him two sides of the same thing. But in this he misjudged the world; he did not realize that his submissiveness and self-sacrifice could be exploited for evil ends. When that happened, the exercise of the calling itself became questionable, and all the moral principles of the German were bound to totter. The fact could not be escaped that the Germans still lacked something fundamental: he could not see the need for free and responsible action, even in opposition to the task and his calling; in its place there appeared on the one hand an irresponsible lack of scruple, and on the other a self-tormenting punctiliousness that never led to action. Civil courage, in fact, can grow only out of the free responsibility of free men. Only now are the Germans beginning to discover the meaning of free responsibility. It depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.
Quelle: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Civil Courage, p. 5

“Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory. Before the disciples must descend with Jesus into the abyss of human guilt, malice, and hatred, Jesus leads them to a high mountain from which they are to receive help. Before Jesus' face is beaten and spat upon, before his cloak is torn and splattered with blood, the disciples are to see Him in his divine glory. His face shines like the face of God and light is the garment he wears.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross, p. 3

“Jesus' call to bear the cross places all who follow him in the community of the forgiveness of sins. Forgiving sins is the Christ-suffering required of his disciples. It is required of all Christians.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 88

“By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

“By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy with his own coin, and preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

“The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law. The Church is not to be a national community like the old Israel, but a community of believers without political or national ties. The old Israel had been both — the chosen people of God and a national community, and it was therefore his will that they should meet force with force. But with the Church it is different: it has abandoned political and national status, and therefore it must patiently endure aggression. Otherwise evil will be heaped upon evil. Only thus can fellowship be established and maintained.
At this point it becomes evident that when a Christian meets with injustice, he no longer clings to his rights and defends them at all costs. He is absolutely free from possessions and bound to Christ alone. Again, his witness to this exclusive adherence to Jesus creates the only workable basis for fellowship, and leaves the aggressor for him to deal with.
The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a stand-still because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match. Of course this can only happen when the last ounce of resistance is abandoned, and the renunciation of revenge is complete. Then evil cannot find its mark, it can breed no further evil, and is left barren.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 141

“God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while other are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case it is one cross.
It is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus' death.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 87

“The cross is not random suffering, but necessary suffering. The cross is not suffering that stems from natural existence; it is the suffering that comes from being Christian. … A Christianity that no longer took discipleship seriously remade the gospel into only the solace of cheap grace. Moreover, it drew no line between natural and Christian existence. Such a Christianity had to understand the cross as one's daily misfortune, as the predicament and anxiety of our daily life. Here it has been forgotten that the cross also means being rejected, that the cross includes the shame of suffering. Being shunned, despised, and deserted by people, as in the psalmists unending lament, is an essential feature of the suffering of the cross, which cannot be comprehended by a Christianity that is unable to differentiate between a citizen's ordinary existence and a Christian existence. The cross is suffering with Christ.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 86

“If any want to become my followers," Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him. … "If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves … and take up their cross.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 85

“Jesus Christ has to suffer and be rejected. … Suffering and being rejected are not the same. Even in his suffering Jesus could have been the celebrated Christ. Indeed, the entire compassion and admiration of the world could focus on the suffering. Looked upon as something tragic, the suffering could in itself convey its own value, its own honor and dignity. But Jesus is the Christ who was rejected in his suffering. Rejection removed all dignity and honor from his suffering. It had to be dishonorable suffering. Suffering and rejection express in summary form the cross of Jesus. Death on the cross means to suffer and to die as one rejected and cast out. It was by divine necessity that Jesus had to suffer and be rejected. Any attempt to hinder what is necessary is satanic. Even, or especially, if such an attempt comes from the circle of disciples, because it intends to prevent Christ from being Christ. The fact that it is Peter, the rock of the church, who makes himself guilty doing this just after he has confessed Jesus to be the Christ and has been commissioned by Christ, shows that from its very beginning the church has taken offense at the suffering of Christ. It does not want that kind of Lord, and as Christ's church it does not want to be forced to accept the law of suffering from its Lord.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 84

“The antithesis between the Christian life and the life of bourgeois respectability is at an end. The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different from the world, in fact, in being prohibited from being different from the world for the sake of grace. The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 51
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

“Should the church be trying to erect a spiritual reign of terror over people by threatening earthly and eternal punishment on its own authority and commanding everything a person must believe and do to be saved? Should the church's word bring new tyranny and violent abuse to human souls? It may be that some people yearn for such servitude. But could the church ever serve such a longing?
When holy scripture speaks of following Jesus, it proclaims that people are free from all human rules, from everything which presumes, burdens, or causes worry and torment of conscience. In following Jesus, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. … Jesus' commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Preface", as translated by Barbara Green and Reihhard Krauss (2001)
Discipleship (1937)

“God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Costly Grace (1937), p. 49

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quelle: Costly Grace (1937), p. 45

“Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part of that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.”

Help us translate this quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

p 43
Costly Grace (1937)

Ähnliche Autoren

Albert Schweitzer Foto
Albert Schweitzer 26
elsässischer Arzt, Theologe, Musiker und Philosoph
Reinhold Niebuhr Foto
Reinhold Niebuhr 2
US-amerikanischer Theologe, Philosoph und Politikwissenscha…
Edith Stein Foto
Edith Stein 8
deutsch-jüdische Philosophin und katholische Nonne
Lion Feuchtwanger Foto
Lion Feuchtwanger 8
deutscher Schriftsteller
Gerhart Hauptmann Foto
Gerhart Hauptmann 19
Schriftsteller des deutschen Naturalismus
Erich Maria Remarque Foto
Erich Maria Remarque 49
deutscher Autor
Curt Goetz Foto
Curt Goetz 7
deutsch-schweizerischer Schriftsteller und Schauspieler
Heinrich Böll Foto
Heinrich Böll 22
deutscher Schriftsteller und Literatur-Nobelpreisträger
Christian Morgenstern Foto
Christian Morgenstern 56
deutscher Dichter und Schriftsteller
Max Born Foto
Max Born 3
deutscher Mathematiker und Physiker, Nobelpreisträger für P…