If the word “faith” has any meaning, it is the certainty of what God—really God, not man—is and does. Faith belongs to God. It does not originate in man. It is God who gives faith and brings it about. The oneness of man with God consists in the faith that comes from God. Where community is given through faith, this community sets to work at a living activity which is God’s doing. In faith, God’s power is revealed through human helplessness, God’s greatness through human smallness.
- Eberhard Arnold
January 06,2026
- Eberhard Arnold Why We Live in CommunityWe love the soil because God’s spirit spoke and created the earth, and because he called it out of its uncultivated natural state so that it might be cultivated by the communal work of human beings. We love physical work – the work of muscle and hand – and we love the craftsman’s art, in which the spirit guides the hand. In the way spirit and hand work together and through each other, we see the mystery of community. God – the creative Spirit – has formed nature, and he has entrusted the earth to us, his sons and daughters, as an inheritance but also as a task: our garden must become his garden, and our work must further his kingdom.
Get Daily Inspiration straight to your Inbox
More Inspiration
The Christian was baptized into Christ, the Crucified, in such a way that the water of baptism could be compared with the blood of Christ; he had made his own the conflict and victory of the cross against all the demonic powers of the world epoch, and lived from now on in the power and future of the Risen One. He who had broken with all things as they are, had to live and die for the cause to which he had pledged himself in this dedication unto death. With a company of warriors faithful unto death the message broke in upon the old world.
- Eberhard Arnold
Jesus Christ never draws near in the course of a fleeting, passing impression. Either He brings God’s whole kingdom forever, or He gives nothing. Only those who want to receive Him completely and forever can experience Him. To Him it is given to know the secret of God’s kingdom. Wherever there is life that comes from God, life takes on that form which corresponds to the complete image of Jesus Christ, and therefore to the kingdom of God.
- Eberhard Arnold