Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Dietrich BonhoefferMan no longer lives in the beginning--he has lost the beginning. Now he finds he is in the middle, knowing neither the end nor the beginning, and yet knowing that he is in the middle, coming from the beginning and going towards the end. He sees that his life is determined by these two facets, of which he knows only that he does not know them
Dietrich BonhoefferJesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.
Dietrich BonhoefferThe fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.
Dietrich BonhoefferIt is the task of youth not to reshape the church, but rather to listen to the word of God.
Dietrich BonhoefferIf Jesus Christ is not true God, how could he help us? If he is not true man, how could he help us?
Dietrich BonhoefferJudgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings, but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer