Quotes from Eric Metaxas

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We may say what we like about his politics, but the king was a faithful husband who sincerely felt that those in power ought to comport themselves with decorum and restraint for the sake of the country.

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also was and is his God. In

Thus we were approaching the borderline between confession and resistance; and if we did not cross this border, our confession was going to be no better than cooperation with the criminals. And so it became clear where the problem lay for the Confessing Church: we were resisting by way of confession, but we were not confessing by way of resistance.

It's much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

The events of the past year had drawn him out into lonelier and more dangerous theological territory, but there was a newfound freedom and a faith that bloomed in this situation. He knew that God was with him in a way he couldn't have known before, so his fear of Rome, if ever any had existed, had vanished.

And he felt that his son, as the heir apparent, ought especially to behave himself to set an example for the nation. But the way his son behaved seemed to express a wish for England's ruin, and father and son became bitterly estranged.

He was a choice spirit, and were he living today would agree with us. I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God.

he now began to think of the church as called by God to "stand with those who suffer.

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. So

His myopic error gave new meaning to the phrase "a shot at greatness," and the others teased him about it for years. Of course, history might have been quite changed had the mistake been more serious. Perhaps most scandalous of all, they waited many years before informing the press.

Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic .

291 The German Christians had convinced themselves that "evangelizing" Germany was worth any price, including eviscerating the gospel by preaching hatred against the Jews. But Bonhoeffer knew that twisting the truth to sell it more effectively was not confined to the German Christians. Members of the Confessing Church had also shaved the truth betimes.

Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney, who was the first female Top Fuel dragster champion, but

They discovered that each of them had relied on the others for proper letters of introduction. In a day when society observed infinitely stricter rules than today, a lack of proper letters of introduction could be disastrous, as theirs now was.

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.

three young men doing nothing began to look suspicious, and eventually they came to the attention of the local police intendant, who, figuring he had stumbled upon some sort of plot—and right under his nose too—brought the scamps to the attention of the secretary to the Council of State, the Abbé de Lageard, who was officially in charge when the archbishop was traveling.

The restoration of the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ according to the Sermon on the Mount. I believe the time has come to gather people together to do this. —DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

if we appeal to Mary and the other saints before we appeal to Jesus himself, are we not effectively denying the Incarnation itself?

didn't take the abbé long to get to the bottom of things, and once their identities were cleared up, Lageard put himself at their disposal, asking how he might improve their situation.

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.

Costly grace changes you from the inside out. Neither law nor cheap grace can do that.

freedom must be won under the compulsion of a necessity. Freedom for the church comes from the necessity of the Word of God.

Bonhoeffer "was a person about whom one had the feeling that he was completely whole," said one Finkenwalde ordinand, "a man who believes in what he thinks and does what he believes in.