Quotes from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. Do not defend God's word, but testify to it. Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“...when someone asked Bonhoeffer whether he shouldn't join the German Christians in order to work against them from within, he answered that he couldn't. 'If you board the wrong train,' he said, 'it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Many years later, after Niemöller had been imprisoned for eight years in concentration camps as the personal prisoner of Adolf Hitler, he penned these infamous words:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionist, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.
And then they came for me -
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made "legal." Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“It was not apathy or passiveness. For him, prayer was a display of the strongest possible activity.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“There was only one reality, and Christ was Lord over all of it, or none.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“It's so easy to become a grumbler, someone who condemns and carps at everything on principle and sees an ulterior motive behind it.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“He had theologically redefined the Christian life as something active, not reactive. It had nothing to do with avoiding sin or with merely talking or teaching or believing theological notions or principles or rules or tenets. It had everything to do with living one’s whole life in obedience to God’s call through action. It did not merely require a mind, but a body too. It was God’s call to be fully human, to live as human beings obedient to the one who had made us, which was the fulfillment of our destiny. It was not a cramped, compromised, circumspect life, but a life lived in a kind of wild, joyful, full-throated freedom—that was what it was to obey God.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“He did not hope that God heard his prayers; he knew it.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Bonhoeffer examined and dismissed a number of approaches to dealing with evil. "Reasonable people," he said, think that "with a little reason, they can pull back together a structure that has come apart at the joints." Then there are the ethical "fanatics" who "believe that they can face the power of evil with the purity of their will and their principles." Men of"conscience" become overwhelmed because the "countless respectable and seductive disguises and masks in which evil approaches them make their conscience anxious and unsure until they finally content themselves with an assuaged conscience instead of a good conscience." They must "deceive their own conscience in order not to despair." Finally there are some who retreat to a "private virtuousness. Such people neither steal, nor murder,nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. but... they must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them. Only at the cost of self-deception can they keep their private blamelessness clean from the stains of responsible action in the world. In all that they do, what they fail to do will not let them rest.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“It is remarkable how I am never quite clear about the motives for any of my decisions. Is that a sign of confusion or inner dishonesty or is it a sign that we are guided without our knowing or is it both ...The reasons one gives for an action to others and to one's self are certainly inadequate. One can give a reason for everything. In the last resort one acts from a level which remains hidden from us. So one can only ask God to judge us and to forgive us.... At the end of the day I can only ask God to give a merciful judgement on today and all its decisions. It is now in his hand.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Future generations would be convinced that nothing good could ever have existed in a country that produced such evil. They would think only of these evils. It would be as if these unleashed dark forces had grotesquely marched like devils on dead horses, backward through the gash in the present, and had destroyed the German past too.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“The Americans speak so much about freedom in their sermons. Freedom as a possession is a doubtful thing for a church; freedom must be won under the compulsion of a necessity. Freedom for the church comes from the necessity of the Word of God. Otherwise it becomes arbitrariness and ends in a great many new ties.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. . . . Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it. . . . Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity!”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Bonhoeffer's experiences with African American community underscored an idea that was developing in his mind: the only real piety and power that he had seen in the American church seemed to be in the churches where there were a present reality and a past history of suffering.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“This was one of the casualties of war, that trust itself seemed to die a thousand deaths.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“the only fight which is lost is that which we give up.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“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.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“The rich world of his ancestors set the standards for Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own life. It gave him a certainty of judgment and manner that cannot be acquired in a single generation.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“It is a question of the freedom of God, which finds its strongest evidence precisely in that God freely chose to be bound to historical human beings and to be placed at the disposal of human beings. God is free not from human beings but for them. Christ is the word of God’s freedom.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Describing Bonhoeffer's demeanor on returning to danger in Germany rather than safety in America, with "with a strong and joyful firmness such as only arises out of realized freedom. ”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“A major theme for Bonhoeffer was that every Christian must be "fully human" by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some "spiritual" realm. To be an ethereal figure who merely talked about God, but somehow refused to get his hands dirty in the real world in which God had placed him, was bad theology. Through Christ, God had shown that he meant us to be in this world and to obey him with our actions in his word. So Bonhoeffer would get his hands dirty, not because he had grown impatient, but because God was speaking to him about further steps of obedience.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also was and is his God.”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction. —DIETRICH BONHOEFFER”
― Eric Metaxas, quote from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“You can always spot a fool, for he is a man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome

“Ah, Piglet, you must never trust
Young ladies from the upper crust.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Revolting Rhymes

“Fear’s a part of life, Mandorallen, and it’s the only life we have.”
― David Eddings, quote from Magician's Gambit

“Being against evil doesn't make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming just like a tide... I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you're fighting.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Islands in the Stream

“He who best discerns the worth of time is most distressed whenever time is lost.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from Purgatorio

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.