Life Together (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works)

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Every Christian community must know that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the community.

The Christian community should not be governed by self-justification, which violates others, but by justification by grace, which serves others.

If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all.

The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them.

Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening.

But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God.

There is also a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say.

The other service one should perform for another person in a Christian community is active helpfulness.

One can joyfully and authentically proclaim the Word of God’s love and mercy with one’s mouth only where one’s hands are not considered too good for deeds of love and mercy in everyday helpfulness.

Sensitive, irritable people will always become flatterers, and very soon they will come to despise and slander other Christians in their community. But humble people will cling to both truth and love. They will stick to the Word of God and let it lead them to others in their community. They can help others through the Word because they seek nothing for themselves and have no fears for themselves.

Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only where the service of listening, helping, forbearing, and proclaiming is carried out.

The community of faith does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and of one another.

The question of spiritual trust, which is so closely connected with the question of authority, is decided by the faithfulness with which people serve Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary gifts they possess.

Those who remain alone with their evil are left utterly alone.

For the pious community permits no one to be a sinner. Hence all have to conceal their sins from themselves and from the community. We are not allowed to be sinners. Many Christians would be unimaginably horrified if a real sinner were suddenly to turn up among the pious. So we remain alone with our sin, trapped in lies and hypocrisy, for we are in fact sinners.

The more lonely people become, the more destructive the power of sin over them.

In confession there occurs a breakthrough to the cross. The root of all sin is pride,

In confession there occurs a breakthrough to assurance.

Confession before one another is given to us by God so that we may be assured of divine forgiveness.

confession is not a law; rather, it is an offer of divine help for the sinner.

Who can hear our confession? Those who themselves live beneath the cross. Wherever the Word of the Crucified is a living reality, there will be confession to one another.

Those who do not practice confession themselves should be careful not to hear the confessions of other Christians,

Only those who have been humbled themselves can hear the confession of another without detriment to themselves.

guard against ever making their confession into ...

Confession as a work is spiritual death; confession in answer to God’s promise is life. The forgiveness of sins is alone the ground and goal of confession.