Bonhoeffer was using the words of Jews—David, Zechariah, and Paul—to make the point that the Jews are God’s people, that the Messiah came from them and came for them first. He had never abandoned them, but longed to reach those who were the “apple of His eye.” If Christianity has come to the Gentiles, it came in some large part so that the Jews could receive their Messiah. Bonhoeffer was identifying the evil done to the Jews as an evil done to God and God’s people, but he was not taking that next theological leap to suggest that Christians were not meant to take the gospel of Christ to the
...more
