Quotes from Eric Metaxas

religion was a dead, man-made thing, and at the heart of Christianity was something else entirely—God himself, alive.

All right," he wrote, "if [the devil] devours me he shall devour a laxative (God willing) which will make his bowels and anus too tight for him. Do you want to bet? One has to suffer if he wants to possess Christ."21

Even if you were to knock my head off, God would still exist.

If it turns out that the thing we believed in or wanted to believe in is not true and real, we may experience a momentary letdown, but in the end we will be in a far better place than if we had blindly clung to something that was really just wish-fulfillment

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God—the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.

Celebramos] con júbilo el cincuenta aniversario de nuestro Führer. En él, Dios le ha concedido al pueblo alemán un hacedor de milagros ... Que nuestra manera de darle las gracias sea la voluntad resuelta e inflexible de no decepcionar... a nuestro Führer en la gran hora histórica».

Soon everyone spoke German the way Luther's translation did. As television has had a homogenizing effect on the accents and dialects of Americans, watering down accents and sanding down sharp twangs, Luther's Bible created a single German tongue.

religion to other religions. Then he came to his main point: the essence of Christianity is not about religion at all, but about the person of Christ.

In fact, we are not sick and in need of healing. We are dead and in need of resurrecting.

Two changes manifested themselves right away: the first was a new attitude toward money, the second toward time.

for Luther the Bible was not a book like Aristotle's Ethics or like a volume of Livy or Cicero. It was something entirely apart from every book in the world. It was the living Word of God and therefore could not be read like any other book. It was inspired by God, and when one read it, one must do so in such a way—with such closeness and intimacy—that one fully intended to feel and smell the breezes of heaven.

At springtime all is born-again.

Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot imagine a scientist without that profound faith.

It is remarkable how I am never quite clear about the motives for any of my decisions. Is that a sign of confusion, of inner dishonesty, or is it a sign that we are guided without our knowing, or is it both? -Bonhoeffer

Years later it occurred to me that I was doing the same thing when I was helping my daughter memorize "Paul Revere's Ride." I was teaching her to love sacrifice and goodness and truth and beauty, and I was teaching her the history of America and therefore teaching her to love America

It had all been an endless, meaningless round of theater performances that he now couldn't remember and long stays at country houses and dances and card parties and eating and drinking to excess and more eating and drinking to excess—and nothing to show for any of it.

The Bonhoeffers were sincerely patriotic, but they never exhibited the nationalistic passion of most other Germans. They maintained a sense of perspective and a coolness, which they taught their children to cultivate.

Every culture and era flatters itself that we are finally seeing what previous eras and cultures could not see because of their own blinders and ideological lenses. To admit that we are in some sense no different from tenth-century peasants is unacceptable to most of us. It may be offensive. To accept it may take real courage.

Although he eventually chose theology over music, music remained a deep passion throughout his life. It became a vital part of his expression of faith, and he taught his students to appreciate it and make it a central aspect of their expressions of faith.

when Melanchthon recalled it, although, as we have said, he was not yet in Wittenberg when it happened, and was really only recounting the recollections of others who had been there. So when he did, he was speaking in the way so many of us do when remembering things: we aren't telling an untruth but conflating things in a way that is not perfectly and literally accurate, specifically to make a larger point, and, as good fiction does, to tell a greater truth.

We know that immediately upon entering the monastery, Luther was lent one that was bound in red leather, for he recollected this often in his later years. It seems that Luther did not receive the book lightly, for he not only read it but almost devoured it. He read it over and over until he was inordinately and perhaps even peculiarly familiar with it. This would of course have everything to do with the events of his future and the future itself.

You can speak of the ethical foundations of science, but you cannot speak of the scientific foundations of ethics.

the essence of Christianity is not about religion at all, but about the person of Christ.

No sooner is a playhouse opened in any part of the Kingdom than it at once becomes surrounded by a halo of brothels.