Sermon to the Preacher’s Seminar
Berlin, may 20, 1926.
Bonhoeffer was a seminary student when he preached this sermon. Germany was in the midst of rebuilding after WWI and was in turmoil politically and socially. He chose his text for the words in v1, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.”
“Certainly, all our doing is in vain if we do only what we want to do. Then we can hope for nothing. But when we are most careful to do what God wants and not what we want, then it is as though the Lord himself builds. For how else can the Lord build except through us?"