Product Description One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus
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.
Outline "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." With these words, in The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave powerful voice to the millions of Christians who believe personal sacrifice is an essential component of faith. Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian, was an exemplar of sacrificial faith: he opposed the Nazis from the first and was eventually imprisoned in Buchenwald and hung by the Gestapo in 1945. The Cost of Discipleship, first published in German in 1937, was Bonhoeffer's answer to the questions, "What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us to-day?" Bonhoeffer's answers are rooted in Lutheran grace and derived from Christian scripture (almost a third of the book consists of an extended meditation on the Sermon on the Mount). The book builds to a stunning conclusion: its closing chapter, "The Image of Christ," describes the believer's spiritual life as participation in Christ's incarnation, with a rare and epigrammatic confidence: "Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord," Bonhoeffer writes, "we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race." --Michael Joseph Gross
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Books > Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Discipleship [1869 similar products]
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"The Cost of Discipleship" - Relevant as Ever May 27, 2008
If Bonhoeffer were alive today and commenting on the American Church of 2008 instead of the German Church of the 1930s, all he would have to add is an appendix on the ascendancy of entertainment. Nothing -- nothing -- else would have to change. His scathing review of the complacency and spiritual poverty of the average Christian points a relevant finger at all of us, especially evangelicals who call themselves followers of The Way and live like followers of their appetites.
A manifesto of love from the beyond May 24, 2008
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" is the kind of book so fundamental to the daily challenges of our lives as followers of Christ that one might compare it to cold water in the long, winding desert of 21st century civilization.
Bonhoeffer knew that very few Christians actually knew what it meant to claim allegiance to God, or to Christian values: how unforgivingly opposed the world has been and always will be to true Christianity. After all, it rejects social mores and the tenets of the world for selfless love, which seems unnatural on the face of it. His distinction between Cheap Grace and Costly Grace is perhaps the most vital part of the book, though the whole text is necessary down to the last letter. Being a Christian means sharing in Christ's life, not attending Church once or twice a week: it means opposing institutional evil--as Bonhoeffer did at the cost of his own basic human needs and eventually his own life in Nazi Germany--right down to one's last breath. This does not mean that the Christian can never have joy or relaxation, of course; it simply means that Christ's edict of love takes place over all else. The person new to theology may want to start with something else, however, as Bonhoeffer is speaking to those who have reached the point of Christ being pretty much the center of their lives. There's nothing that can be said about Bonhoeffer or this book which would match what it holds between it's covers. A must, must read!
skipping? Apr 20, 2008
If you're looking to skip out on reading the real book, this is for you. But I recommend reading the real thing, not the short notes.
Good book! Mar 11, 2008
What I've read so far is pretty good. A little redundant at times, but good.
We are all God's disciples who follow Christ Jan 15, 2008
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a humble Christian pastor who was hanged by the Nazis near the end of the war. This was written in the late thirties, and is directed towards all Christians, not just pastors; for we are all God's disciples who follow Christ. We follow along with the original disciples; teaching us how to live a life of obedience and discard the self. Sermon like; he brings about ways of reading the scriptures to a new level of understanding. I can't state the importance of this book enough.
The book begins with a memoir by G. Leibholz: Bonhoeffer did not take the pacifist line, he felt it was our duty as Christians to oppose tyranny; the liberalized church didn't think so. "Thus Bonhoeffer's life and death have given us great hope for the future. He has set a model for a new type of true leadership inspired by the gospel, daily ready for martyrdom and death and imbued by a new spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty. The victory which he has won was a victory for us all, a conquest never to be undone, of love, light and liberty."
Bonhoeffer points to: Christ is the cost----the church has only succeeded in cheapening it; as disciples we have no special powers on others, only Christ has the ability, for "the word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works." And he says, "How can you hope to enter into communion with him when at some point in your life you are running away form him? The man who disobeys cannot believe, for only he who obeys can believe", or only those who believe obey, and only those who obey believe. Powerful are his words on Christ's fulfillment of the commandments (sermon on the mount), for we are to hear the word and obey the will of Christ----it is the same now as it was then. Is it not shameful that so many German pastors did not read or hear Dietrich's words, for if they did, they did not listen.
Are we not all commanded to follow Him?, not just the select few; are you? We would give our life for our child, would you give it for Christ (even first)? Ask yourself: do you, or have you, endured persecution and or suffering because of your faith?----you should. What will it be: nature, the state, the self, or Christ? A little of each?; we cannot serve two masters. "Indeed it is wrong to speak of the Christian life: we should speak rather of Christ living in us"
