The Cost of Discipleship

The Cost of Discipleship is a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that every Christian should read – at least twice – because it’s focus on what it means to be a true disciple, a follower, of Christ, and to understand that there is a cost to the disciple.

 Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Germany for several years before Hitler came to power.  He tried, without success, to wake up the German church to fight against Naziism. He fought hard right up to April 9, 1945 when he was executed by the Nazis for his refusal to turn away from his faith and his discipleship to Jesus Christ. 

This book was first published in the US in 1959 but was actually published in Germany in 1937, four years after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and two years before Germany invaded Poland to launch World War II.    As the book title suggests, it is both a strong teaching while being a serious admonition for those German Christians who lived during this very dark era.  It is a powerful book with a powerful message that I recommend for all who want to be a disciple of Jesus, a follower. (I would also recommend Eric Metaxas biography of Bonhoeffer – Bonhoeffer – Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.)

               But the part that I want to share here, and ever so briefly, is in the opening paragraph of Chapter 30, titled The Visible Community.  Here, Bonhoeffer makes this statement: “The body of Christ takes up space on earth. That is the consequence of the Incarnation. Christ came into his own.  But at his birth they gave him a manger, for “there was no room for him in the inn.”  At his death, they thrust him out, and his Body hung between earth and heaven on the gallows. But despite all this, the Incarnation does involve a claim to a space of its own on earth. Anything that claims space is visible.  Hence, the Body of Christ can only be a visible Body, or else it is not all. The physical body of the man Jesus is visible to all, his divine sonship only to the eye of faith, just as that Body as the Body of God incarnate is visible only to faith.  That Jesus was in the flesh was visible fact, but that he bore our flesh is a matter of faith. “To this man shalt thou point and say, Here is God.”  (Luther).

     What kind of visibility does the church in America have today?  The whole message of this chapter 30 is the visibility of the Body of Christ, the Church, on earth.  It is meant to be visible, something that can been seen and heard and felt.  It is to be speaking into and acting to influence our culture.  It isn’t to be invisible or hiding behind the curtains (or stained glass) over the windows of our local churches.  Read again the book of The Acts of the Apostles.  You won’t find a hiding church here but one that is highly visible, taking up space, engaged to not only spread the Good News but also to engage the current culture.

In this same chapter, I came upon his very astute statement, part observation and part prophecy. “The older the world grows, the more heated becomes the conflict between Christ and Antichrist, and the more thorough the efforts of the world to get rid of the Christians.  Until now the world had always granted them a lodging place by allowing them to work for their own food and clothing. But a world that has become 100% anti-Christian cannot allow them even this private sphere of work for their daily bread. The Christians are now forced to deny their Lord for every crumb of bread that they need.  Either they must flee from the world or go to prison; there is no other alternative.  When the Christian community has been deprived of its last inch of space on earth, the end will be near.”

     Do you see how this prophetic word from God, written in 1937, also relates to Christians in America today?  Or to Jews in Israel, and in every other part of the world?  Look at what has happened, and what is happening in our nation over the past several decades.  Can you not see the effort intensifying to get serious about eradicating the “visible community” of Christians?  And it’s not happening in just our nation.  Look at several of the other formerly “stalwart” Christian nations in Europe.  Look at the rising tide of antisemitism.  It has erupted like a fiery volcano since Israel was so diabolically attacked on October 7th, and has so determinedly responded to protect its citizens and determined to destroy their enemies who have vowed to annihilate them.  “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” a chant that is nothing less than demanding the genocide of the Jewish people, even as Hitler tried to so hard to do during his evil reign.

After a very brief, and very weak expression of “outrage” by the western world, Satan quickly regrouped his allies, bringing many out of their closets, stripping away their masks of civility and “acceptance” that they have hidden behind for so long.  They marched and demonstrated and shouted that Israel was the enemy, that Israel was the aggressor, that Israel had no right to defend itself, to exercise their God-given right to strike back at this deadly, death-dealing enemy.

Look at the response in our own nation, especially on the college campuses where it quickly became the theme to denounce Israel, condemning them for “genocide”.  Netanyahu accurately described these college protestors as being “Iran’s useful idiots”.   And look at the response of our national leaders, those elected or appointed to guide our nation.  It has been so divided in any attempt to truly support Israel.   While at the same time shipping necessary armaments, they began immediately to insist that Israel use “restraint”, limiting itself to a “measured response”, thus speaking out of both sides of its collective mouth.  What restraint would you expect from our government if one of our national neighbors decided to reign such death and destruction within our borders? 

Cissie Graham Lynch, granddaughter of Billy Graham, just recently published a book titled Fear Less Family. In the introduction, the author so clearly calls out how far our culture as fallen. “Today, we are surrounded by a culture, both inside the church and out, that continues to compromise on truth and morality.  It feels as if the only sin in America today is to call something sinful!  Marriage, gender, sexuality, equality and justice are simple words that have been twisted and redefined in ways God never intended.  People are choosing to be ruled by their feelings rather than by the truth.  My grandfather once said ‘The secret strength of a nation is found in the faith that abides in the hearts and homes of the country.’  We must have a strong faith is we want to be a strong nation.”

So will we wake up in time to realize that it is a spiritual warfare that is raging around us, warfare far deadlier than that waged with guns, bombs or rockets.  It is warfare directed and orchestrated by “principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12)  and its past time for us (Christians) to get off the bleachers, put on the strong armor of God, take the Sword of the Spirit out of its protective sheath and engage the enemy! And we need to realize that the only offensive piece of armor is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God!”

And here we encounter one of the first “costs” if the commitment to become proficient with the Sword of the Spirt.  We must recognize, accept and embrace the fact that there is indeed a “cost” of discipleship, a cost to pay in order to truly follow Jesus.  God’s grace is freely given but His gift of reconciliation through Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, is only the beginning.  It isn’t the end.  To become a disciple isn’t like buying a fire insurance policy and then going on with life without recognizing the need to prevent fires or put out fires.  We must change, to become more like Jesus each day, to become His disciple.  To be His disciple, in its simplest and deepest definition, is nothing less than following Him. And it is in following Him where we encounter the “cost of discipleship”.

I believe that the very first step in walking the path of discipleship is praying for God to teach us from His Word.  And how does God teach us from His Word?  It doesn’t come from osmosis.  It doesn’t come from an hour in Sunday School and an hour in church once a week.  It can only come from an investment of our time, of our energy.  It comes with the dedication and determination to DAILY read the Bible, to read it with the purpose of learning.  When we read, we need to ask the Holy Spirit of the Sovereign Lord for wisdom and understanding and the revelation knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ!

 This morning, I listened to a teaching of Dr. Brant Petri (find him on You Tube) regarding Hebrews 4:12, where the Word of God is described as being sharper than any two-edged sword…  “For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.”  AMP Bible.

In this teaching, Dr. Petri quoted a church “father”, St. Gregory the Great who lived in the late 5th century: “The more a saint (one who, by grace through faith, has received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior) progresses in the Scripture, the more the same Scripture progresses in him. Divine eloquence grows with the reader, for one understands it more deeply as one’s intention searches more deeply within it…”  And in another of this church father’s writings, he likened the Scripture to being both a shallow pool within which an infant can safely enter and the ocean within which a whale can comfortably swim.  It is a picture of how the Word of God grows within a person as they grow from being an “infant” in Christ to being a “mature” person in Christ and in His word.  The Scripture isn’t a dead book but it is “alive and living”.

Dr. Petri also quoted from another church “father”, John Cassian, who lived in the 3rd century: “As our mind is increasingly renewed by this study (of the Scriptures), the face of the Scripture will also be renewed, and the beauty of a more sacred understanding will somehow grow with the person making progress.  For its form is also adapted to the capacity of human intelligence, and it will appear as earthly to carnal persons and as divine to spiritual persons.”

So the place where discipleship really begins…and in which it must continue…is in the Sacred Word of God.  We must take the time and make the effort to READ THE BIBLE each day.  Read it with the prayer for God’s Holy Spirit to open your eyes to all that He wants you to see, hear, comprehend and take into your life.  The message of Deitrich Bonhoeffer is the message of faith AND obedience to God’s Word because the written Word and the Living Word are inseparable and necessary to equip the saints (you and me) to “having done all, to stand”.

Russ October 17, 2024