Quotes about Spirituality

The questions that are seriously put to us today by young theologians are: How do I learn to pray? How do I learn to read the Bible? If we cannot help them there we cannot help them at all.

It had been Luther's idea that Christians should confess to one another instead of to a priest. Most Lutherans had thrown that baby out with the bathwater and didn't confess to anyone. Confession of any kind was considered overly Catholic, just as extemporaneous prayer was criticized as too pietistic. But Bonhoeffer successfully instituted the practice of confessing one to another.

Thus," he said, "the Christian message is basically amoral and irreligious, paradoxical as that may sound".

One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one's own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us.

What made him stand out, to some as an inspiration, to others as an oddity, and to others as an offense, was that he did not hope that God heard his prayers, but knew it.

Twisting of the holiest and highest truth in the universe.

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.

We build him a temple, but we live in our own houses." Religion had been exiled to Sunday morning, to a place "into which one gladly withdraws for a couple of hours, but only to get back to one's place of work immediately afterward.

A person's strength comes solely from being united with the will of God.

By praying "his" prayers—the Psalms of the Old Testament, which Jesus prayed—we effectively piggyback on them all the way to heaven.

He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Seeds were planted and evidently sown while the bishops slept (Mt 13:25).