Bonhoeffer in 5 Sayings

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life of faith and adversity offers profound lessons for Christians in our day. Today, Stephen Nichols reflects on five powerful sayings from Bonhoeffer, illuminating his steadfast commitment to Christ, even in the face of immense trials.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are continuing our series of looking at some of our favorite theologians in five sayings. And today we are looking at Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Now, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a 20th century figure. We're going to see him playing a crucial role in the events of World War II as they unfold. But for this first quote, I want to go to 1930. Bonhoeffer had finished his academic work. He had two doctorates. He was about to start teaching at the University of Berlin, and he requested a year's leave to go and study theological developments in the United States. He would end up at New York, but he landed first at Philadelphia. He had relatives in the Philadelphia area. And in 1930, he wrote a letter mailed from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania back to his brother. And in the letter he writes, “Today, I'm supposed to learn how to play golf.” Now I want to start there because it's not very theological or spiritual, but we need to remember that these church history figures are people too. I'm not sure how golf went for him. He says, “I'm supposed to learn how to play golf.” Maybe he never made it out onto the links, but it doesn't seem like he talks about golf a lot as his life unfolds. So, there it is.

The second saying comes from these early years of Bonhoeffer too, this from a sermon that he preached in Barcelona. He was a youth pastor in Barcelona for several months. He also liked to attend the bull fights there in Barcelona. But in one of those sermons in 1928, he wrote, “The religion of Christ is not the tidbit after the bread. It is the bread itself.” This is going to be a significant theme of Bonhoeffer, of the centrality of Christ in the life of a Christian, not just on the margins, not just in certain areas, but really at the center and then permeating out. And so, Christianity is not just the little bit, the tidbit, he calls it after the bread. No, it's the bread itself.

Third saying comes from another sermon, 1933, 34, Bonhoeffer was in London preaching to a German speaking congregation there in London. And this was a time of turmoil back in Germany and turmoil in the National German church, the Lutheran Church. And there was a group within that church that were beginning to see where things were going, both politically and in terms of the church. And so, they were forming the Confessing Church. And just to sort of take a step out of all of that and get some perspective, Bonhoeffer went to London and one of those sermons he was preaching on 2 Corinthians 12:9. And he is talking about how God glorifies himself in the weak, even as God is glorified in the cross of Christ. And then Bonhoeffer says, “God is mighty where man is nothing.”

Well, for the fourth saying, we have to go to one of his letters from Tegel Prison. And in 1944, and actually just a day after the Valkyrie plot and the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, Bonhoeffer writes to his friend, his former student, Eberhard Bethge. He's talking about discipleship and he's talking about what discipleship is, and he says, “Discipleship is living completely in this world.” In fact, he will call it “This worldliness discipleship.” Not worldly in the terms of 1 John, the things of the world, but recognizing that it is in this environment in this world is where we live. And so Bonhoeffer says, “By this worldliness discipleship, I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences, and perplexities.” There's six things in that list. One is neutral, experience, only one is good, successes. The rest we'd probably do without, duties, problems, failures, perplexities. But Bonhoeffer says that's what life is, and living in that life is where we live out our discipleship.

Well, speaking of discipleship, let's end with probably one of his most famous sayings. Bonhoeffer’s fifth and last saying from his classic text, The Cost of Discipleship. And he said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” So that's Dietrich Bonhoeffer on discipleship. And that's Dietrich Bonhoeffer in five sayings. And I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.