Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians because we are talking when we should be listening.
Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.
One’s task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.
Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.
The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.
If you want my goodness to stay with you then serve your neighbor, for that is where God comes to you.
Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.
The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.
God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings.
The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.
Whenever Christ calls us, His call leads us to death.
The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.
The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day.
Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.
Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.
We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.
Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.
The fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.
Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.