Life Together Quotes

“l can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitheno may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day. The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“Somewhere along the line, "Church" became a weekly event rather than a gathering of people who did life together.”
― Todd Stocker

“We recognize, then, that only as we are within the fellowship can we be· alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship. It is not as though the one preceded the other; both begin at the same time, namely, with the call of Jesus Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“Blessed are those who are alone in the strength of the community. Blessed are those who preserve community in the strength of solitude. But the strength of solitude and the strength of community is the strength of the Word of God alone, which is meant for the individual in the community.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“His yellow eyes were half-lidded as he sang, and in that golden moment, hanging taut in the middle of an ice-covered landscape like a single bubble of summer nectar, I could see how my life could be stretched out in front of me.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

“The community of faith does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and of one another. It does not lack the former, but the latter. The community of faith will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus, because it knows that it will then be guided not by human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd. The question of spiritual trust, which is so closely connected with the question of authority, is decided by the faithfulness with which people serve Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary gifts they possess. Authority in pastoral care can be found only in the servants of Jesus who seek no authority of their own, but who are Christians one to another, obedient to the authority of the Word.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, paragraph 92)”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible

“...совпадение в уровне образования, знаний, идеальных устремлений и помыслов, какое Ты, похоже, считаешь необходимым для счастливого брака, на мой взгляд, во-первых, почти невозможно, во-вторых, несущественно, а в-третьих, даже неблагоприятно и нежелательно. Чего требует брак, так это человеческого единения, то есть согласия ещё задолго до всех мнений, согласия, которое нельзя проверить, можно только почувствовать - это невынужденная необходимость двоих людей быть вместе. Необходимость, ничуть не нарушающая свободы каждого из них, ибо нарушает эту свободу только вынужденная необходимость сосуществования с другими людьми, из которого и состоит большая часть нашей жизни.”
― Franz Kafka, Приговор. Письма к Фелиции

“К чему стремиться изменять людей, Фелиция? Это неправильно. Людей надо принимать такими, как есть, или оставлять в покое. Изменить их нельзя, можно разве что внести в их натуру сумбур и смуту. Человек ведь не состоит из отдельных частей, так, чтобы любую можно было изъять и заменить чем-то другим. В человеке, напротив, всё - одно целое, дёрнешь за один кончик, а получается, что против воли дёрнул и за другой.”
― Franz Kafka, Приговор. Письма к Фелиции

“We’re not perfect, Rollin. But I think that’s the point, isn’t it? You and I—we’re figuring this out together. And that’s what makes us strong.”
― Drew Beyson, Love Lasts: Contemporary Clean Small Town Romance Moon View Series: Book 3 of 3