We 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.
- Eberhard Arnold
February 01,2026
- Eberhard Arnold From a letter, July 1934Not our inadequacy, but God’s perfect will is now the substance of our life and thinking. Therefore, from now on our entire interest goes away from ourselves, toward all people of the earth and of all worlds of God, toward near and far creatures of God; toward those who have died and those unborn. The interest of God’s kingdom embraces the times and spaces of all worlds of God, of the earth as well as of all other worlds with all their spiritual princes and creatures of light. That God’s kingdom may become reality on earth as it is real in heaven—that is what we have to live for. Certainly, for this a turning is necessary.
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In Jesus’ resurrected presence, the invisible kingdom of God has become visible reality. The word has taken shape, love has become real. Jesus showed what love meant. His word and life proved that love knows no bounds. Love halts at no barrier. It can never be silenced, no matter what circumstances make it seem impossible to practice it. Nothing is impossible for the faith that springs from the fire of love.
- Eberhard Arnold
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). There is no other perfection, only that of love. So be aware of the things that thwart this love: property and worry! Wherever possessions are heaped up while elsewhere people go hungry and cold, there is no love. So gather no wealth for yourself. Do not worry. Worriers build life on wealth just as much as the wealthy. Look at the birds and flowers, and believe in the loving God, the Father who provides everything.
- Eberhard Arnold