Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

by Eric Metaxas

faith was less about an intellectual assent to doctrines than about a personal, transforming encounter with God,

He could appreciate the value in something, even if he ultimately rejected that something—and could see the errors and flaws in something, even if he ultimately accepted that something.

Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.

They would brilliantly co-opt the conservatives and the Christian churches, and when they had the power to do so, they would turn on them too.

The unreservedness of life together makes one person open to another; in the conflict between determination for truth with all of its consequences and the will for community, the latter prevails.

Bonhoeffer’s experiences with the 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.

“If you board the wrong train,” he said, “it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.”

some point he would be able to do nothing more than “suffer faithfully” in his cell, praising God as he did so, thanking him for the high privilege of being counted worthy to do so.

Bonhoeffer reminded us that our primary object was not to commend our own views, national or individual, but to hear what God would say to us.”

to some as an inspiration, to others as an oddity, and to others as an offense,

Actions must follow what one believed, else one could not claim to believe it.

He touched on his depression years later, in a letter to Bethge from Tegel prison: “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.”

The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it,

The Gospel is protected by the preaching of repentance which calls sin sin and declares the sinner guilty.

At some point every person must hear from God, must know what God was calling him to do, apart from others. Bonhoeffer did not believe it was permissible for him to take up arms in this war of aggression, but he also did not feel that he could make an absolute rule out of this, or declare it and put the Confessing Church in a difficult spot. He was looking for a way out that would allow him to obey his conscience, but that would not force others to obey his conscience.

As long as there are lonely Christians there will always be [church] services.

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open.

“You Christians are glad when someone else does what you know must be done,” she said, “but it seems that somehow you are unwilling to get your own hands dirty and do it.”

we were resisting by way of confession, but we were not confessing by way of resistance.

false, inauthentic apocalypticism that is becoming so widespread today,

only through discipline may a man learn to be free.

“Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.”

Hard work has for centuries been extolled as the finest remedy for troubles and cares.

Personally, I think what really matters is that the right kind of work renders one unselfish, and that a person whose heart is filled with personal interests and concerns develops a desire for such unselfishness in the service of others.

Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him.