The Cost of Discipleship
About this ebook
"WHEN CHRIST CALLS A MAN HE BIDS HIM COME AND DIE"
―Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves . . . the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is 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 knock. . . .”
―Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, now with new translations and transliterations. An insightful look at grace and the path to eternal life, featuring:
-New Greek, Latin, and French Translations and Transliterations.
-Original Foreword By By G. K. A. Bell, Late Bishop of Chichester; And Author Memoir By G. Leibholz.
-Newly Edited Content (Reviewed, Revised, and Refined) to Maximize Quality Reading.
"A rigorously patient exposition of the Sermon on the Mount which compels the reader to face himself, and God, in any situation. A very moving book, lived as well as written”
—Times (London) Literary Supplement
"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 39 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
Millions of readers worldwide have benefited from the profound insights presented in The Cost of Discipleship. In this remarkable work, 20th-century Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer asserts that “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”. Drawing from the Sermon on the Mount, Bonhoeffer offers a critical examination of the distinction between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." He describes "cheap grace" as self-bestowed, characterized by the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, and communion without confession. According to Bonhoeffer, "cheap grace is grace without discipleship."
Conversely, he defines "costly grace" as the gift that must be earnestly sought, symbolized by the door at which one must knock. It is costly because it demands a person's life, yet it is grace because it is given by God and provides a path to true life.
The Cost of Discipleship was first published in 1936. Blue Harvest Publishing is dedicated to introducing individuals to the revelation of Jesus Christ through the publication of Christian content. This book is part of the Blue Harvest Publishing Classics series, selected for its wisdom and influence. The Cost of Discipleship is an excellent addition to any Christian library.
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About the author
Berlin, 1933. Twenty-seven-year-old pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer leans toward a radio microphone and, with calm urgency, reminds a spellbound nation that Jesus Christ—not the Führer—claims every human heart. The broadcast is severed mid-sentence, but the spark is struck. Born in 1906 to a cultured German family, Bonhoeffer chased theology like a detective, gathering clues in Berlin, Barcelona, and jazz-soaked Harlem before penning his breakout manifesto The Cost of Discipleship, a rallying cry for costly grace.
When the Nazis bent Germany’s churches into propaganda, he co-founded the shadow-realm Confessing Church, training seminarians in wind-swept farmhouses—a crucible later chronicled in Life Together. Barred from the pulpit in 1940, he stepped onto a quieter battlefield with an Abwehr resistance ring, its coded letters hidden in hymnals, its prayers whispered over railway timetables. Even his theological drafts—eventually published as Ethics—read like covert dispatches from occupied territory.
Arrested in 1943, Bonhoeffer filled his cell with chess games, quiet jokes, and the letters that would become Letters and Papers from Prison and Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. At dawn on April 9, 1945, he walked to the Flossenbürg gallows serene in the promise that, through Christ, every ending is only the first chapter of life renewed.
