Religious Books in Order
Part ofDietrich Bonhoeffer Books in OrderExplore the Religious books by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in order, with summaries and background to help readers use these devotional titles for reflection and prayer.
Last updated: December 22, 2025
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Publication Order
14 books
Wonder of Wonders
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2014
This illustrated gift book gathers brief Advent and Christmas meditations from Bonhoeffer’s writings, pairing them with evocative photographs to invite quiet reflection on the incarnation, waiting, and hope during a season often crowded with noise and hurry.
God Is on the Cross
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2012
Drawn from Bonhoeffer’s sermons, letters, and books, these daily readings follow Lent and Holy Week, focusing on the meaning of the cross, repentance, discipleship, and resurrection hope for Christians living amid suffering and injustice.
God is in the Manger
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2010
This companion volume offers forty short devotions for Advent and Christmas, interweaving Bonhoeffer’s prison letters and sermons to explore themes of waiting, incarnation, joy, and God’s presence among the poor and forgotten.
Meditations on Psalms
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2005
In these sermons and short meditations, Bonhoeffer turns again and again to the Psalms as the church’s prayer book, showing how biblical lament, praise, and trust can shape Christian spirituality in times of turmoil, injustice, and joy.
I Want to Live These Days with You
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2005
Organized around the church year, this yearlong devotional gathers prayers, sermons, and reflections from across Bonhoeffer’s work, offering a few paragraphs per day that invite readers to pray, reflect, and follow Christ in ordinary life.
A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2005
Arranged as daily readings, this devotional walks through Bonhoeffer’s letters, sermons, and books over 365 days, introducing key themes like discipleship, community, and hope in suffering with brief selections and accompanying reflections.
The Mystery of Easter
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1998
This small, beautifully produced book offers Easter meditations from Bonhoeffer alongside classic artwork, reflecting on the cross, resurrection, and the transformation of suffering, and inviting readers into a quiet contemplation of the central mystery of Christian faith.
Meditations on the Cross
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1998
Selections from Bonhoeffer’s sermons and letters meditate on the cross and resurrection as the center of Christian life, exploring how God meets human weakness, guilt, and fear in Christ’s suffering and calls believers to hopeful, costly obedience.
Spiritual Care
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1985
Based on Bonhoeffer’s lectures on pastoral theology, Spiritual Care reflects on how God meets people through proclamation, counseling, and the life of the congregation, offering practical wisdom on confession, visitation, preaching, and accompanying others through suffering.
Prayers From Prison
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1978
Collected from his final years behind bars, these prayers and poems reveal Bonhoeffer’s inner life in Tegel prison—his honesty about fear and guilt, his trust in God’s presence, and his intercession for family, church, and enemies.
I Loved This People
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1966
This slim collection highlights Bonhoeffer’s reflections on his vocation to serve the German people and church, expressing both deep affection and sharp critique as he wrestles with nationalism, guilt, and the call to responsible Christian witness.
Christ the Center
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1960
Adapted from his 1933 Christology lectures, this book presents Bonhoeffer’s conviction that Jesus Christ is the living center of reality and of theology, challenging readers to think about revelation, church, and discipleship in resolutely Christ-focused terms.
Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1959
In this brief classic, Bonhoeffer explains how the Psalms teach Christians to pray with Christ and the whole church, turning fear, anger, joy, and hope into honest speech before God and shaping a shared life of worship.
The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1937
Bonhoeffer unpacks Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and introduces his famous contrast between cheap grace and costly grace, calling Christians to concrete obedience, cross-bearing, and life in community rather than comfortable, nominal belief.
Series background & context
The Religious series brings together Bonhoeffer’s more overtly devotional and pastoral writings, the pieces many readers first meet when they are searching for guidance in prayer, suffering, or everyday discipleship. These books are shorter, more meditative, and often organized for use over a season or a year.
Most of the material was first spoken rather than written: sermons preached in small congregations, addresses to students at his illegal seminary, letters written from prison, and short reflections prepared for holidays. When editors later shaped these into collections, they kept the direct, conversational tone of a pastor talking to ordinary people.
Several volumes follow the church year, offering readings for Advent and Christmas, or for Lent and Easter. Here Bonhoeffer meditates on the manger and the cross as the two places where worldly power trembles and God’s self-giving love is revealed. The selections are brief but dense, inviting readers to slow down in seasons that are often hurried or emotionally heavy.
Other books in this grouping provide a reading for each day of the year, weaving together sentences and paragraphs from across his work. In them you hear recurring themes—costly grace, Christ at the center, Scripture as the church’s prayer book—while also seeing how his language changes from the classroom to the pulpit to the prison yard.
Many of these selections focus on Scripture, especially the Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, and key passages on the cross and resurrection. Bonhoeffer writes about learning to pray with the words of the Bible, about finding God not in abstract ideas but in concrete obedience, and about discovering hope in the midst of fear, loneliness, and injustice.
Included as well are his prison prayers and poems, which give a rare window into his inner life during confinement. They are unsentimental and honest, moving from confession and lament to trust and quiet joy, and they show how his theology held under severe pressure.
Taken together, the Religious volumes are less about mastering information and more about forming a way of seeing. They are well suited for personal devotions, small groups, or preparation for preaching and teaching. Readers who start here will meet Bonhoeffer not first as an academic thinker, but as a fellow Christian who learned, in very difficult circumstances, to seek God in Scripture, community, and costly love.
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