Synopses & Reviews
One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic text on ethics, humanism, and civic duty.
What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? 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 ourselves...grace 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.
Review
"Among the Flossenberg martyrs was a remarkable young Lutheran pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had joined the underground convinced that it was his duty as a Christian to work for Hitler's defeat. Bonhoeffer was only thirty-nine when he died, but he had already made a monumental contribution to Christian thought, which today has profound and growing significance for both theologian and layman. bonhoeffer's books are gaining an astonishing popularity in the secular world....He is admired by people who have read his best-known books, The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison, as the example of what a modern Christian must be." Life
Synopsis
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.
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 ourselves...grace 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.
About the Author
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau in 1906. The son of a famous German psychiatrist, he studied in Berlin and New York City. He left the safety of America to return to Germany and continue his public repudiation of the Nazis, which led to his arrest in 1943. Linked to the group of conspirators whose attempted assassination of Hitler failed, he was hanged in April 1945.
Table of Contents
ContentsForeword by Bishop G. K. A. Bell
Memoir by G. Leibholz
Introduction
I GRACE AND DISCIPLESHIP
1 Costly Grace
2 The Call to Discipleship
3 Single-Minded Obedience
4 Discipleship and the Cross
5 Discipleship and the Individual
II THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Matthew 5: Of the "Extraordinariness" of the Christian Life
6 The Beatitudes
7 The Visible Community
8 The Righteousness of Christ
9 The Brother
10 Woman
11 Truthfulness
12 Revenge
13 The Enemy -- the "Extraordinary"
Matthew 6: Of the Hidden Character of the Christian Life
14 The Hidden Righteousness
15 The Hiddenness of Prayer
16 The Hiddenness of the Devout Life
17 The Simplicity of the Carefree Life
Matthew 7: The Separation of the Disciple Community
18 The Disciple and Unbelievers
19 The Great Divide
20 The Conclusion
III THE MESSENGERS
21 The Harvest
22 The Apostles
23 The Work
24 The Suffering of the Messengers
25 The Decision
26 The Fruit
IV THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE LIFE OF DISCIPLESHIP
27 Preliminary Questions
28 Baptism
29 The Body of Christ
30 The Visible Community
31 The Saints
32 The Image of Christ
Index of Subjects
Index of Biblical References