Summary Of The Cost Of Discipleship By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived a life that was fully dedicated to God. He was born into a religious family and decided at an early age that he was going to share the gospel with everyone he possibly could by becoming a pastor. Bonhoeffer went to seminary for a few years and then ran the Confessing Church- which pledged it’s allegiance to Jesus Christ first, not the government. The church was unfortunately shut down by the Nazi government. Later in his life Bonhoeffer was arrested and hanged for his plan to assassinate Hitler. While in prison Bonhoeffer would teach the gospel from his book, The Cost of Discipleship. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer was published in 1937. This book talks about two different types of grace. The first …show more content…
Bonhoeffer uses this technique many times through his piece when talking about cheap grace and costly grace. For example, regarding what cheap grace is and what cheap grace is not Bonhoeffer states that “cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, Jesus Christ” (242). Here Bonhoeffer shows how cheap grace- which is what is mostly seen in the world today- does not have any true saving faith. Cheap grace does not have Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, and does not command mankind to go out and share the gospel. Without those things no-one can be saved from Hell, without Jesus and the cross, there is no way to have a relationship with God. In contrast to cheap grace and it’s fake values is costly grace. Bonhoeffer shows that this is the true saving grace that people need to be following. He writes that “costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for,” and that costly grace “compels the man to submit to the yoke of christ, and follow him.” He is saying that this is the grace that people need to be following, this grace mankind should constantly be seeking out, this grace is the grace that does get you into Heaven and propels you into a relationship with the Almighty. By contrasting the two examples of grace side-by-side Bonhoeffer shows which grace people should be following-costly grace- and what …show more content…
Bonhoeffer uses parallelism many times in The Cost of Discipleship. He even uses parallel sentences as transitions from one idea to the next. The reason Bonhoeffer uses parallelism is because he is trying to make a point; he wants people to pick out a specific idea/ideas so he repeats the phrase or sentence. For example, Bonhoeffer uses parallelism by writing one paragraph dedicated to talking about costly grace repeating the phrase “costly grace is.”(241) He repeats this word form because he wants his readers to understand what costly grace is and how important it is to understand what it is. By using the phrase “costly grace is” repetitively his readers get a mood of fullness. What this means is when he keeps saying something is something he means it has no problems and no defects, it almost sounds perfect. Although Bonhoeffer presses a mood of confidence by saying that “costly grace is” always fill-in-the-blank, he also uses the word form to say what cheap grace is without. Bonhoeffer says that “cheap grace is without Jesus Christ, without the cross, and without discipleship.” He reiterates the word from “is without” because he wants to point out what cheap grace is lacking. With using the word from “is without” Bonhoeffer pushes the fact that cheap grace is always lacking in something, it is never enough. Without means to be absent of something, so why would it be significant to