Dietrich Bonhoeffer – was hung, April 9, 1945

Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing.  It may be the ideal way.  It may even lead to martyrdom but it is devoid of all promise.  Jesus will certainly reject it.  p 64

 

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.  p 69

 

Every man is called separately and must follow alone.  p 105    

 

Intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbors.  p 110

 

When reproached they [the meek] hold their peace…they will not go to law to defend their rights… p 122

 

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Chr. Kaiser Verlag Munchen, 1937;  reprint, NY: Macmillan, 1963), 163.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hung by the Nazis this date 4/9/1945.  His classic Cost of Discipleship is very much worth reading.  He was born2/4/1906.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer – birth, Feb. 4, 1906

We must make it clear—fearful as it is—that the time is very near when we shall have to decide between national socialism and Christianity… – 94  [1]

 

Christ’s work in us is not finished until He has perfected His own form in us.  – 116

 

Even those who honestly describe themselves as “religious” do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by “religious.”  – 169    

 

The real man is at liberty to be his creator’s creature…God loves the real man.  God became a real man.  – 179

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born this date, 2/4/1906 at Breslau, Poland.  In the 1930s Hitler took over churches in Germany, trying to make them his propaganda tools.  Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran, was among those who protested this power.  He was arrested in April 1943 and hung in 1944, after being accused of a plot (note “accused”) to kill Hitler.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship is well worth reading. 

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[1] Page references from Michael Van Dyke, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Opponent of the Nazi Regime (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Pub., 2001)

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer – wrote, Mar. 19, 1944

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on this date, 3/19/1944, is said to have written in a letter

“We can have abundant life, even though many wishes remain unfulfilled.” 

Bonhoeffer was a German pastor (Lutheran) who did not sympathize with the Nazi regime and was in fact of martyr of the same.  His Cost of Discipleship is a great read.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer – said, Apr. 8, 1945

“This is the end –

for me the beginning”

 

These are the last recorded words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer said 4/8/1945.  The Nazis hung this German theologian the next day.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer – birth, Feb. 4, 1906

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church.

                Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Cost of Discipleship,  (NY: Macmillan, 1963), 45.

 

Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing.  It may be the ideal way.  It may even lead to martyrdom but it is devoid of all promise.  Jesus will certainly reject it.

            Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Cost of Discipleship,  (NY: Macmillan, 1963), 64.

 

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.

                Dietrich Bonhoeffer,  Cost of Discipleship,  (NY: Macmillan, 1963), 69.

Dietrich  Bonhoeffer was born this date (2/4/1906) in Breslau, Poland.  He was a Lutheran minister who readily saw through the wrongness of the churches backing Hitler.  Bonhoeffer was hung for allegedly plotting to “take out” Hitler.  His Cost of Discipleship is very good reading. 

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