Every Christian must be "fully human" by bringing God into his whole life, not merely into some "spiritual" realm. To be an ethereal figure who merely talked about God, but somehow refused to get his hands dirty in the real world in which God had placed him, was bad theology. Through Christ, God had shown that he meant us to be in this world and to obey him with our actions in this world.

Bonhoeffer was not interested in intellectual abstraction. Theology must lead to the practical aspects of how to live as a Christian.

He had theologically redefined the Christian life as something active, not reactive. It had nothing to do with avoiding sin or with merely talking or teaching or believing theological notions or principles or rules or tenets. It had everything to do with living one's whole life in obedience to God's call through action.

If a Christian may act in the several relations of life, must he seclude himself for all to become so? Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple, and lead not to meditation only but to action.

There was one activity that Bonhoeffer would enjoy in Barcelona, but could never enjoy in Berlin. That was the arte taurina (bull fighting). Though an aesthete and an intellectual, Bonhoeffer was neither effete nor squeamish. His brother Klaus arrived for a visit on Easter Saturday, and on Easter afternoon—Bonhoeffer preached that morning—they were "dragged" by a German teacher, presumably Thumm, to the "great Easter corrida."

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!

Our productivity in the kingdom of God is directly related to our character and our Christ-likeness.

I pray while driving. I pray while working, and while relaxing.

I am interested in the blueness of the cheese.

Billy Graham once said, "We are the Bibles the world is reading. We are the creeds the world is needing. We are the sermons the world is heeding.

Our central job is not to solve the world's problems. Our job is to draw our entire life from Christ and manifest that life to others. Nothing could be simpler—and nothing could be more challenging.

At that moment they ceased being human beings and began to be human doings.