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The Cost of Discipleship

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TL;DR

  • The Cost of Discipleship is Bonhoeffer’s sustained argument that authentic Christian faith demands costly obedience to Christ—not merely intellectual assent, moral improvement, or the maintenance of religious respectability.
  • Bonhoeffer’s most famous distinction is between cheap grace—the forgiveness of sin without repentance, grace treated as a doctrine rather than a living encounter—and costly grace, which calls believers to follow Christ fully and bear whatever cross that entails.
  • Written in Nazi Germany and published in 1937, the book draws primarily on the Sermon on the Mount to argue that the visible community of the church must embody radical, distinctive discipleship rather than accommodating itself to the surrounding culture.

Source Info

  • Title: The Cost of Discipleship (Nachfolge)
  • Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • Publication Date: 1937 (English translation 1949)
  • Themes:
    • Cheap grace versus costly grace
    • Radical discipleship
    • The Sermon on the Mount
    • Church and the state
    • Christian community and witness
    • Obedience and faith

Key Ideas

  • Cheap grace is the arch-enemy of the church: it is grace treated as a given, requiring neither repentance nor discipleship—the forgiveness of sins proclaimed without demanding that people forsake their sins.
  • Costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again, because it calls people to follow Jesus not merely in belief but in life; it cost God the life of his Son, and it costs the disciple his or her own life.
  • Discipleship is inseparable from concrete obedience: for Bonhoeffer, there is no faith without obedience and no obedience without faith—the two are not sequential but simultaneous.

Chapter Summaries

  • Part I: Grace and Discipleship

    • Chapter 1: Costly Grace

      • Main Idea: Bonhoeffer opens with his central theological distinction between cheap grace and costly grace.
      • Key Points:
        • Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.
        • It is grace without discipleship, without the cross, without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.
        • Costly grace is the treasure hidden in a field: for the sake of it, the disciple sells all he has.
        • The church’s great failure has been to give away grace cheaply, immunizing people against the real thing.
      • Key Quotes:
        • “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.”
        • “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 knock.”
      • Defined Terms:
        • Cheap grace: Grace treated as a general principle, a doctrine, or a comforting idea—without the demand of repentance, obedience, or discipleship.
        • Costly grace: Grace that calls the disciple to follow Jesus Christ and costs the recipient his or her life.
      • Takeaway: The most dangerous enemy of Christian faith is not atheism but an accommodated, comfortable Christianity that grants forgiveness without demanding transformation.

    • Chapter 2: The Call to Discipleship

      • Main Idea: Discipleship begins with the concrete call of Jesus—not a principle to accept but a person to follow.
      • Key Points:
        • The call of Jesus to the disciples was simple and immediate: “Follow me.” There was no prior religious preparation required.
        • Faith and obedience are not separable: the disciple does not first believe and then obey—obedience is part of the act of faith.
        • Bonhoeffer uses the calling of Levi/Matthew to illustrate that Christ’s call breaks through all existing obligations.
      • Defined Terms:
        • Discipleship: The concrete following of Jesus Christ, involving both faith and obedience in lived experience.
      • Takeaway: The call to follow Jesus is total, immediate, and personal—not a doctrine to assent to but a person to follow.

    • Chapter 3: Single-Minded Obedience

      • Main Idea: Genuine discipleship requires undivided attention and single-minded obedience—not balancing Jesus against other commitments.
      • Key Points:
        • Partial obedience is not obedience; half-hearted discipleship is not discipleship.
        • The person called must leave behind competing loyalties—family, security, social position—that would dilute the call.
        • Bonhoeffer challenges the tendency to spiritualize or privatize obedience in ways that never require concrete action.
      • Takeaway: There is no obedience that is purely internal; genuine discipleship must become visible in how one lives.

    • Chapter 4: Discipleship and the Cross

      • Main Idea: Following Jesus is not a path of self-fulfillment but the way of the cross—which means suffering, rejection, and death to self.
      • Key Points:
        • Every disciple is called to bear his or her own cross—not merely to admire Christ’s cross from a distance.
        • The cross is not a general symbol for life’s hardships; it is the suffering that comes specifically from following Jesus.
        • Suffering in discipleship is not meaningless; it is participation in the suffering of Christ.
      • Key Quotes:
        • “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
      • Defined Terms:
        • Cross-bearing: The specific suffering and self-denial that arises from following Jesus into the world.
      • Takeaway: Christian life is not a spiritual upgrade—it is the way of the cross, which always leads through death before it leads to life.

  • Part II: The Sermon on the Mount

    • The Beatitudes

      • Main Idea: The Beatitudes describe not aspirational virtues but the actual condition of those who follow Jesus—poor, mourning, meek, persecuted.
      • Key Points:
        • The poor in spirit are those who have renounced every claim of their own before God and live entirely from his gift.
        • The mourning are those who refuse to be at peace with what the world calls normal—they mourn sin and suffer with those who suffer.
        • The meek have given up the right to defend themselves; they inherit the earth not through force but through Christ.
      • Takeaway: The Beatitudes are not moral advice for improving oneself—they describe the extraordinary community of Jesus.

    • The Visible Community

      • Main Idea: The community of Jesus is not a private, invisible spiritual reality—it is visible in the world and called to be a city on a hill.
      • Key Points:
        • Salt that loses its saltiness is thrown away; a community that accommodates itself to the world loses its witness.
        • The visible character of Christian community is not optional—it is part of what the gospel requires.
        • Good works are done not to earn merit but as natural expression of life with Christ, giving glory to the Father.
      • Takeaway: The church is not a private club for souls—it is a public witness to another way of living.

    • The Antitheses (You Have Heard… But I Say)

      • Main Idea: Jesus radicalize the commandments by addressing not only external actions but the heart—anger, lust, dishonesty—from which sinful actions arise.
      • Key Points:
        • Jesus does not abolish the law but fulfills and intensifies it, reaching to the root of human desire and intention.
        • The extraordinary nature of discipleship shows in concrete renunciations: turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, loving the enemy.
        • These demands are not counsels of perfection for a monastic elite but commands for every follower.
      • Defined Terms:
        • Antitheses: The six contrasts in the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus deepens the Old Testament commandments.
      • Takeaway: Bonhoeffer refuses to soften Jesus’s commands into general principles; they must be obeyed literally and concretely.

    • Loving the Enemy

      • Main Idea: Love of enemies is the supreme test of discipleship and the most distinctive mark of the community of Jesus.
      • Key Points:
        • Loving those who love us is no different from what pagans do; only love of the enemy reveals a genuinely new kind of community.
        • Enemy love is not a feeling but a practice: praying for, blessing, and doing good to those who hate.
        • This is possible only as a participation in God’s own love—not as a human achievement.
      • Takeaway: The command to love enemies is not an ideal to admire from afar—it is a concrete practice that marks the disciple as belonging to Christ.

  • Part III: The Messengers

    • Main Idea: Jesus sends his disciples as messengers into the world—vulnerable, without protection, carrying only the word.
    • Key Points:
      • The disciples are sent as sheep among wolves; their power is not worldly authority but the word they carry.
      • Persecution is not a sign of failure—it is proof that the messenger is following in the footsteps of Jesus.
      • The hiddenness and vulnerability of the disciples’ mission is part of its integrity.
    • Takeaway: The church’s mission in the world is not to accumulate power but to follow the vulnerable, crucified Christ.

  • Part IV: The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship

    • Main Idea: The visible church is the body of Christ in the world, and membership in it is not nominal but costly and concrete.
    • Key Points:
      • Baptism is not a rite of inclusion but an entry into the death and resurrection of Christ.
      • The Lord’s Supper is not a symbol but a participation in Christ’s body and blood.
      • The image of God, lost in the fall, is restored in Christ—and discipleship is the process of being conformed to his image.
    • Defined Terms:
      • Image of God (imago Dei): The human capacity to reflect God’s character, which is restored through union with Christ.
    • Takeaway: The church is not a social institution that happens to use religious language—it is the community in which the costly grace of God is lived and proclaimed.

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