He Boarded the Last Ship: What Dietrich Bonhoeffer Teaches Us About Costly Faith
In the summer of 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was safe. The young German theologian had just arrived in New York City, where American colleagues had arranged a teaching post at Union Theological Seminary, specifically to protect him from the Nazi regime tightening its grip on Germany. And he chose to go back.
To understand why, you have to understand the man. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was already, at thirty-three, one of the most gifted theologians of the twentieth century. The crossing had been carefully arranged. The university appointment was waiting. Safety was secured.
He lasted twenty-six days.
In a letter to his mentor Reinhold Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer explained his decision to return: he could not help rebuild the Christian life of Germany after the war if he had not shared the suffering of its people during it. So he boarded the last passenger ship crossing the Atlantic before the war closed the ocean, and sailed back into the storm.
The Prison Cell That Preached
Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943 and imprisoned at Tegel military prison in Berlin. What happened next is one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the Christian faith. From his prison cell, Bonhoeffer wrote letters, theological reflections, and poetry that would shape the worldwide church for generations. He preached to fellow prisoners. He counseled his guards. And in the prayers he led, those captors heard a certainty that unnerved them.
He wrote these words from that cell: “I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil.” It is Romans 8:28 lived out in a prison uniform.
Twenty-Three Days Short of the Sunrise
On April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp. The camp doctor, a non-believer, later wrote that he had never, in fifty years of medicine, seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.
Germany surrendered twenty-three days later.
Bonhoeffer never saw it. But God had seen all of it, from the moment Bonhoeffer knelt to pray on a New York pier and decided that following Jesus was worth more than being safe.
Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Bonhoeffer’s reward did not look the way any of us would have chosen. But his voice, silenced in 1945, is still speaking today in pulpits, classrooms, and hearts all over the world.
What storm are you being called to sail back into? What costly obedience is God asking of you today?
The ship is still at the dock. The question is whether you’ll board it.
And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.
Listen to the full Take 5 episode
This week’s Take 5 devotional tells Bonhoeffer’s full story in five minutes. Listen on Lift Up Your Day.
Related devotionals
- Portraits of Faith: Alvin York and the God Who Measures Your Heart
- Portraits of Faith: The Night of Fire — Blaise Pascal
- The Prayer That Sparked a Revival: Lessons from the Hebrides, 1949
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