The Cost of Discipleship

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

the last war was, ultimately, ideological in its basic character and that we are living to-day in a primarily ideological age.

Referring to WW2 but relevant to today. (in the "Memoir" by G. Leibholz)

nationalism stands under God and that it is a sin against him and his call for fellowship with other nations if it degenerates into national egotism and greed.

(in the "Memoir" by G. Leibholz)

Christian principles must in some way be translated into human life and that it is in the sphere of the material, in state and society, that responsible love has to be manifested.

(in the "Memoir" by G. Leibholz)

In a modern dictatorship, however, with its subterranean ubiquity and all-embracing instruments of oppression, a revolt means certain death to all who support it.

(in the "Memoir" by G. Leibholz)

The majority of the people in all nations alike does not consist of heroes.

(in the "Memoir" by G. Leibholz)

He died on the cross alone, abandoned by his disciples. With him were crucified, not two of his followers, but two murderers.

I've never thought about the fact that the disciples should have been up there and not two strangers and murderers.

Discipleship means joy.

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

By thus limiting the application of the commandments of Jesus to a restricted group of specialists, the Church evolved the fatal conception of the double standard—a maximum and a minimum standard of Christian obedience.

Of monks.

The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one’s daily vocation of life.

Only in so far as the Christian’s secular calling is exercised in the following of Jesus does it receive from the gospel new sanction and justification.

It was grace because it cost so much, and it cost so much because it was grace.

If grace is God’s answer, the gift of Christian life, then we cannot for a moment dispense with following Christ.

The disciple simply burns his boats and goes ahead. He is called out, and has to forsake his old life in order that he may “exist” in the strictest sense of the word. The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered.

It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking through every programme, every ideal, every set of laws.

No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.

discipleship can tolerate no conditions which might come between Jesus and our obedience to him.

The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus.

only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.

For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.

If a drunkard signs the pledge, or a rich man gives all his money away, they are both of them freeing themselves from their slavery to alcohol or riches, but not from their bondage to themselves. They are still moving in their own little orbit, perhaps even more than they were before.

If you dismiss the word of God’s command, you will not receive his word of grace.

If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don’t believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it.

Unbelief thrives on cheap grace, for it is determined to persist in disobedience.

Your difficulty is your sins.”

“Tear yourself away from all other attachments, and follow him.”

“You are the neighbour. Go along and try to be obedient by loving others.”

Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience. We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbour or not.

rely on Christ’s word, and cling to it as offering greater security than all the securities in the world.

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us.

To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.

The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

My brother’s burden which I must bear is not only his outward lot, his natural characteristics and gifts, but quite literally his sin. And the only way to bear that sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I now share.

Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian’s duty to bear.

For God is a God who bears. The Son of God bore our flesh, he bore the cross, he bore our sins, thus making atonement for us.

We can of course shake off the burden which is laid upon us, but only find that we have a still heavier burden to carry—a yoke of our own choosing, the yoke of our self.

Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so would be sin.

However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behaviour, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbours through him.

There can be no genuine thanksgiving for the blessings of nation, family, history and nature without that heart-felt penitence which gives the glory to Christ alone above all else.

No one else knows what has happened. Abraham comes down from the mountain with Isaac just as he went up, but the whole situation has changed.

Outwardly the picture is unchanged, but the old is passed away, and behold all things are new. Everything has had to pass through Christ.

Though we all have to enter upon discipleship alone, we do not remain alone. If we take him at his word and dare to become individuals, our reward is the fellowship of the Church.