Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life Quotes

“The church is the real thing when it is not consumed with the assertion of power in culture, but it is driven by service to others. The word ministry translates the Greek word diakonia, which means service. The church must be about serving others. When a church can lay claim to all three criteria, namely, preaching of the Word, being true to its confession, and focusing on serving, then it’s a church worth going to. And then it’s a church full of sermons worth listening to.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“We could summarize all of this background to Bonhoeffer’s christology in one sentence, albeit a complex one: The cross was a stumbling block to the Romans; the cross was a stumbling block to the Nazis; the cross was a stumbling block to moderns; and—unless we are humbled and brought low beneath the cross to see its power and beauty—the cross can be a stumbling block to us.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“David McCullough has said, “We are shaped by those we never met.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“The ethics of the Sermon on the Mount are nothing less than extraordinary. To look at them as something that can be fulfilled within the ordinary and by ordinary means is foolish. Bonhoeffer writes that loving one’s enemies “demands more than the strength a natural person can muster.”4 Only from the perspective of the cross do the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount become possible; only by living from the cross can the ethical demands of Jesus come to pass in our lives. Again, “In Christ the crucified and his community, the ‘extraordinary’ occurs.”5 Do we really understand what love is? Or, to put the matter another way, who among us truly understands being a follower of Christ, a disciple? If left on our own, we would not get very far in answering these questions. So we see in Christ and we find in Christ what we need. But Bonhoeffer still calls us to live this way, not simply calling us to see Christ living this way.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“God draws near to the lowly, loving the lost, the unnoticed, the unremarkable, the excluded, the powerless, and the broken.”15”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“This life from the cross (Bonhoeffer’s christology) and life in the church (his ecclesiology) together lead to the disciplines of the Christian life.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“This life from the cross (Bonhoeffer’s christology) and life in the church (his ecclesiology) together lead to the disciplines of the Christian”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Bonhoeffer has both christology (the doctrine of Christ) and ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) at the center of his theology, like the hub of a wheel. It might even be better to say that Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology flows from, naturally and necessarily, his christology”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Perhaps Bonhoeffer shapes us best by showing us in word and in deed, as a theologian and in his life, how to live the Christian life, how to be a disciple of Christ, how to live in the Christuswirklichkeit.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Christuswirklichkeit, a living in the one realm of the Christ reality.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Costly discipleship is held captive to Christ; it is Christ-centered.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“To understand Bonhoeffer, we must first and foremost understand living by faith.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“To understand Bonhoeffer, we must understand, on the one hand, the limits of oneself and, on the other hand, the utter absence of limits of God.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“We are also brought into the church-community as a result of Christ’s death on the cross—a community of the forgiven, who should be quick to forgive, a community of those who have been interceded for and should be, likewise, quick to intercede, and a community whose burdens have been lifted and who should be quick to bear the burdens of others. Bonhoeffer”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“If this earth was good enough for the man Jesus Christ, if such a man as Jesus lived, then, and only then, life has a meaning for us.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Everything in the prior chapters has been leading us up to this point. Our look at his christology (chap. 2) and ecclesiology (chap. 3) laid the foundation for it. Our discussion of Scripture and reading and living God’s Word (chap. 4), our discussion of prayer (chap. 5), and our discussion of thinking and living theologically (chap. 6) all explained the particular means by which we learn and practice it. Our most recent discussions of being “worldly” (chap. 7) and of freedom and service and sacrifice (chap. 8) were looking at manifestations of it. Now, what remains is to travel to the peak itself, to see Bonhoeffer’s views on love and his life of love.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“I offer this succinct synopsis of Bonhoeffer on the Christian life: We live in love by grace as the church-community—in, through, and toward Christ.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“This poem, “Stations on the Road to Freedom,” echoes the Christ-centered or christotelic emphasis we have come to see in so much of Bonhoeffer’s writings. In Christ’s humiliation we see discipline, action, suffering, and ultimately death. In Christ’s crucifixion we see all four as well. And in Christ’s resurrection we see his triumph over death and over suffering. In the risen and living Christ we see the triumph of freedom.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Bonhoeffer and Luther draw on Christ’s paradox of gaining one’s life by losing it. So we come to the ultimate paradox: by service—and ultimately, by sacrifice—we are free, we are happy, we live the good life. True freedom is only freedom in Christ. True freedom, as Luther points out, is found in serving others. Bonhoeffer echoes that notion.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“It would be safe to say that by the nineteenth century, pietism had long since dislodged Puritanism as the dominant force in American religious life.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“We seem especially susceptible to this pitting of spirituality against theology in American evangelical contexts. Perhaps we can chalk this up to the influence of pietism, which courses through the veins of many evangelicals. Pietism should not be confused with piety. Piety means simply the spiritual practices of praying, Bible reading and meditation, fasting, and gifts of charity.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“A congregation that does not pray for the ministry of its pastor,” Bonhoeffer warns, “is no longer a congregation.”11 He then adds, “A pastor who does not pray daily for his congregation is no longer a pastor.”12”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“What theological conservatives need to guard against, though, is thinking that because we affirm the Bible to be God’s inerrant and authoritative word, we have therefore submitted to the Bible. We can be conservatively confessional and functionally liberal. In other words, submitting to the Bible is far more than affirming an orthodox statement of Scripture. Affirming such a statement is crucial and essential. We should never minimize that. But affirming a high view of Scripture is only the first step of submission. We fully submit to God’s Word when we accept its authority over our lives as we read it.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Gratitude is equally underrated and under-practiced. It too requires humility to say “thank you.” Saying “thank you” means one is dependent on the other, that one needs the other.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“Leaning on Augustine’s insight, Bonhoeffer sees the sanctorum communio as “the community of loving persons who, touched by God’s Spirit, radiate love and grace.”17”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“His ecclesiology, though, is never an independent topic. It always flows from and back to Christ and his christology. Neither is Bonhoeffer content with mere academic work on ecclesiology. For his ecclesiology is never independent of practice or action. Christ always and necessarily stands before and above and over Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology; and ethics, which for him can be summed up in love, always and necessarily pours out from and surrounds his ecclesiology.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World

“The God-man who is humiliated is the stumbling block to the pious human being and to the human being, period.”
― Stephen J. Nichols, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, for the World