Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.

If our love of God does not directly influence, and even change, how we engage in the issues of our time on this earth, I wonder what good religion is.

For Faith is the beginning and the end is love, and God is the two of them brought into unity. After these comes whatever else makes up a Christian gentleman.

In short, were a man to "give all his goods to feed the poor, and his body to be burned," out of zeal to promote some public good, yet without love to God, without benevolent attachment to universal being, he is morally nothing, or worse than nothing.

So in the sense in which the apostle James seems to use the word justify for manifestative justification, a man is justified not only by faith, but also by works; as a tree is manifested to be good, not only by immediately examining the tree, but also by the fruit,664 Prov. xx. 11. "Even a child is known by his doing, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

Actions must follow what one believed, else one could not claim to believe it.

The acutely Christian character of the British abolitionist movement is undeniable, for its leaders were all consciously acting out of the principles of their deeply held faith.

Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple and lead not to meditation only, but to action.

To be true to God in the deepest way meant having such a relationship with him that one did not live legalistically by "rules" or "principles." One could never separate one's actions from one's relationship to God. It was a more demanding and more mature level of obedience.

Perhaps even more important in the Bonhoeffer family was acting upon what one said one believed. One must not only think clearly but must prove one's thoughts in action. If one was unprepared to live out what one claimed to believe, perhaps one didn't believe what one claimed after all!

I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations… I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?

Differences between "magic" and biblical faith is that magic is about engaging in behaviors that ultimately benefit the practitioner, while biblical faith is about cultivating a covenantal relationship with God that is built on mutual trust.