The Cost of Discipleship

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.

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. ERIC METAXAS is an author whose books have been translated into twenty-five languages. The host of a nationally syndicated radio show and the acclaimed conversation series Socrates in the City, he is a prominent cultural commentator whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives with his family in New York City.

Contents Foreword 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