Bonhoeffer quotes: Psalms, Prayerbook of the Bible

The first sermon in the teaching series is called. Seek His Face Continually. It can be downloaded and listened to at the Christ Church sermon archives page. In it, I make extensive references to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's amazing last book, Psalms, Prayer Book of the Bible. It is a rich source of inspiration for us to be immersed in the Psalms. These exerpts are adapted from the introduction to the new edition of Bonhoeffer's works.


The Nazi Board for the regulation of Literature fined and chastised B for publishing the book as subversive. Removed the fine but banned all future publications. (imprisoned and executed before he could!) Anything lifting up the Old Test. Or the Old Testament people of God – the Jews was out. It was in the context of the German church struggle (main church sold its soul to the Nazis)

That B desired to retrieve the Psalms as the prayer book of Jesus. Interpreted the Ps as did Luther seeing Christ in them and speaking in them as well as the source of His own prayers (Marty).
He saw it as side by side with the Lord’s prayer as the Lord’s answer to the plea of the Disciples, “Teach us to pray!” The LP can be seen as the lens through which we read the Psalms. We pray with Jesus in the Psalms.

Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus Christ.

We learn to pray like a child learns to speak – saying the parent’s words after them. So prayer is answering God

Reading the Psalms in worship services; (learned in the Benedictine Monastery experience) having systematic ways of reading the Psalms are a profound help in forming an independent relationship with God and with God’s Word.

Psalms should be prayed in their entirety since they “mirror life with all its ups and downs, its passions, and discouragements.”

Luther: “Whoever has begun to pray the Psalter earnestly and regularly, will soon take leave of those other , easy, little prayers of their own and say: ‘Au, there is not the juice, the strength, the passion, the fire which I find in the Psalter.’”

B. loved to pray the Psalms because they offered him the sustaining and liberating power of God’s own words in coping with the vicissitudes of everyday living. The praying of the Psalms also teaches us to pray as a community.

Letter to parents when imprisoned: “I read the Psalms every day, as I have done for years; I know them and love them more than any other book.” Psa 31:15 My times are in your hands…rescue me
Psa 13, How long O Lord…
The source of B’s vitality and stamina in prison = “his constant , daily, childlike relationship to God.” (Burton Nelson) He would learn scripture during the day and review it before sleep…wake up at 6 and read Psalms and hymns.

The prison doc who attended his execution wrote, “I was most deeply moved by the way this extraordinary, lovable man prayed, so resigned and so certain that God heard his prayer.”

Daily use:. Every day we should read and pray several Psalms, if possible with others, so that we read through this book repeatedly during the year and continue to delve into it ever more deeply.

The church father Jerome says that in his time one could hear the Psalms being sung in the fields and gardens. The Psalms filled the life of early Christianity. Its recovery will be powerful for the church.

Adapted from Fortress Press ed. Of the complete works of Bonhoeffer