Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas, takes the reader on a journey of both history and heart. As Tim Keller writes, “The English-speaking public needs to know far more about his thought as well as his life.”
It is my hope, that in pondering these quotes, you, too, will want to know more about the German Christ follower who, because of his faith, gave his life for that faith.
“In the whole of world history, there is always only one really significant hour, the present.”
“Pain is a holy angel who shows treasures to men which otherwise remain forever hidden.”
"When you read the Bible, you must think that, here and now, God is speaking with me.”
“Every word of Holy Scripture is quite personally a message of God’s love for us.”
“Quite personally, since I have learned to read the Bible in this way, and this has not been for so very long, it becomes every day more wonderful to me.”
“It is not your love that sustains the marriage but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”
"Anyway, what do happiness and unhappiness mean? They depend so little on circumstances and so much more on what goes on inside us."
In the final pages of this book, the author quotes from Bonhoeffer’s memorial service, which, due to the upheaval in Nazi Germany, took place in London:
"Millions have seen Bonhoeffer's death as tragic, and as a prematurely ended life. We can be certain that he did not see it that way at all. In a sermon he preached while a pastor in London, he said "No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence … that life only really begins when it ends here on earth.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
February 4, 1906 - April 9, 1945
Place of death: Flossenbürg Concentration Camp
Living with Eternal Intentionality®
In considering these quotes, which one in particular inspires you?
Why?
