Keep your courage and hold fast to the holy expectation! The faith and the love of Jesus Christ will give you the great thoughts which are worthy of this hour. The more evil the hour, the greater it becomes for the Gospel and for the task of the Church. Do not be alarmed! God is greater than our hearts. The believing heart can embrace greater things than the whole world can imagine. Surrender every single thing into the whole! Let the great things rule over all small things!
- Eberhard Arnold
- Eberhard Arnold, January 1920 From an EssayJustice and love demand that everyone take part in simple practical work with a spade, hatchet, or rake. Everyone should be ready to devote a few hours every day to this practical work; those who have done purely mental work till now will feel its humanizing effect especially. In this way it will be possible for each person’s unique gifts to be kindled. The light that flickers within each heart will then exhibit its once-hidden glow in scholarly research or in music, in expressive words, or in the craftsman’s art in wood, stone, or paint…such work will reveal the joy in life that is in each person. Only death knows idleness and tedium. Where there is life, the mind’s creative will remains alert and comes to expression in the service of the whole.
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The love to Jesus, this burning personal love to God who has made himself known to us, is and remains the witness to the unity of all-embracing life. This love as the deepest and most heartfelt personal relationship finds its living expression in calling upon the One it loves. The truth and force of this love, however, lies in the decisive fact that it is God, really God, whom it meets in Christ. One who really believes in God as He is and works, will be urged again and again to communicate with Him.
- Eberhard Arnold
The abyss between the two mortally opposed armies is the abyss between the present and the future, between the existent era and the coming epoch of history. Therefore the heroism of Jesus is at variance with the spirit of the age in every respect. But the character of His way is to subject all present conditions and relationship of life to the coming purpose of the future.
- Eberhard Arnold