The Cost of Discipleship

I would like to recommend a book: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.  There are many books out there that attempt to teach us how we can grow in our maturity as a Christian and live as a disciple of Jesus Christ.    It seems that over the past ten years or so, there has been a renewed interest in getting serious about our faith and making the kinds of sacrifices necessary to break from the cultural norms and live the kind of Christian life that can be categorized as radical, crazy, greater or purposeful.  While I enjoy reading books from modern American pastors and usually get a lot of challenging insights from them; I realize that, like me, these pastors see and do life from a very comfortable and protected perch.  It is not that we cannot know and interpret scripture from the safe confines of a church office, but I sometimes like to hear from the heart of those who have walked the most difficult paths and made the most life-changing sacrifices.  Much of the New Testament was written by men like Paul and Peter who had not only given away the comforts of this life for the cause of Christ, but also spent many of their final days in a prison cell awaited the executioner.  Because of their personal sacrifices, their insights on being a disciple are invaluable.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany in 1906.  As a young man, he studied in Berlin and New York but while in the US he felt God’s call on his life to be a Lutheran Pastor.  During the height of WWII he left the US and went back to Germany where he used his position as a pastor to preach and teach against the Nazi regime.  He was arrested in 1943 and imprisoned until he was hanged in 1945.  The Cost of Discipleship, one of his best known books, has become a classic in Christian discipleship.  I highly recommend it to anyone who seeks to deepen their understanding of God’s call on their life.

In my opinion, one of the greatest contributions of this work is the distinction made between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.”  Bonhoeffer wrote, “cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves… grace without discipleship…Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift 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.”  Depth of understanding like this does not come from a life of ease, but rather a life of total sacrifice for the cause of Christ.

The Cost of Discipleship.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.  Thanks for reading.