Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship,” first published in 1937, remains one of the most challenging and convicting books in Christian literature. Written as Nazi ideology was sweeping through the German church, Bonhoeffer’s call to costly grace feels remarkably relevant today.
His most famous distinction — between “cheap grace” and “costly grace” — strikes at the heart of comfortable Christianity. “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.”
Costly grace, by contrast, “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.” It is costly because it cost God the life of His Son, and it calls us to follow.
Bonhoeffer practiced what he preached. He returned to Germany from the safety of America, joined the resistance against Hitler, and was executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp in April 1945, just weeks before liberation.
Reading Bonhoeffer in 2026 forces uncomfortable questions: Where have we settled for cheap grace? Where does our faith cost us nothing? His witness challenges us to take seriously the words of Jesus: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).