dietrich bonhoeffer book the cost of discipleship

The Cost of Discipleship opens with a chapter on “cheap grace” and “costly grace,” in which Bonhoeffer introduces his criticism of the modern Christian church. As a remedy, he challenged Christians to adopt a rigorous lifestyle of “discipleship,” which involved self-denial, suffering, and renouncing your civil rights.

He expressed concern that, by trying to make Christianity easier for people to practice, churches had actually made it meaningless. With The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer placed a wake-up call to Christians. How much does eternal life cost? According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it will cost you a lot: It entails self-denial, suffering, and voluntary forfeiture of your civil rights.ĭietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and seminary professor before and during World War II.

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Here’s a brief overview of the key themes discussed in the book. Bonhoeffer wrote the book as a challenge to Christians to take their faith more seriously and realize its true requirements. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a classic of Christian thought. Why is The Cost of Discipleship so widely read? What is the book’s main argument? What does Bonhoeffer mean by the “cost of discipleship”? Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading. What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the government worker? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between 'cheap grace' and 'costly grace.' 'Cheap grace,' Bonhoeffer wrote, 'is the grace we bestow on ace without discipleship.Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know.It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.' The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to 'The Cost of Discipleship' by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. NEW FOREWORD BY ERIC METAXAS Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic book on living as a Christian.

Dietrich bonhoeffer book the cost of discipleship