Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends
Dietrich BonhoefferHe who fears the face of God does not fear the face of man. He who fears the face of man does not fear the face of God.
Dietrich BonhoefferThere remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.
Dietrich BonhoefferDiscipleship never consists in this or that specific action: it is always a decision, either for or against Jesus Christ.
Dietrich BonhoefferIt is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ
Dietrich BonhoefferChristian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love.
Dietrich BonhoefferThe question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible...The theological question does not arise about the origin of evil but about the real overcoming of evil on the Cross; it ask for the forgiveness of guilt, for the reconciliation of the fallen world
Dietrich Bonhoeffer