The Cost of Discipleship, a call to more faithful and radical obedience to Christ and a severe rebuke of comfortable Christianity: "Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. É Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus.

In 1937, on the threshold of Nazi Germany's war on the world, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote what turned out to be one of the most influential books of the century, The Cost of Discipleship. In it, he challenged the flabby faith and compromises of German Christians, famously writing, "When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die." Now, seventy-three years after the book was first published, Jon Walker writes Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. Walker brings to a new generation the timeless message of Bonhoeffer against the background of today's political upheaval and societal change and what it means to those who claim to follow Christ's teachings.

NEW FOREWORD BY ERIC METAXAS Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic book on living as a Christian. What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the government worker? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.

What does it mean to ‘take up your cross daily’? “Sell your possessions and give to the poor”--really!? “Deny yourself,” Jesus says. How does all of this fit together in a world two thousand years removed? Joining Jesus on the Way, takes a look at the discipleship teachings of Jesus through the lens of the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s unique emphasis on discipleship has long been recognized among the Gospel traditions. One might even call Luke’s Gospel a discipleship manual. In Luke, Jesus prepares his disciples for the power packed ministry they will live out in Luke’s second volume, Acts. Jesus teaches his disciples about self-denial, obedience to his commands, proper attitude toward possessions, faith and prayer, and, after his resurrection, promises them the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to continue the ministry he began. Most of Jesus’ discipleship teachings are found in the “travel narrative” portion of the Gospel of Luke. In these ten chapters, Jesus is traveling up to Jerusalem and his ultimate destiny, the cross. This is a journey on which Jesus invites all would-be disciples to join him. On the way, we learn what it means to be true followers of Jesus. The ultimate goal of the journey is the cross, which every disciple must bear, but the journey does not end here. Death to self means resurrection to new life in Christ. Two thousand years later, Jesus is still calling his followers to join him on the way, but we don’t always know how to answer that call. It’s not necessarily our fault, as we seem to hear very little these days about true discipleship. Some are answering the call but don’t know what to do next. Their pursuit of Jesus is avid, but they need someone to help them along the way. This book is written to be that help. In Joining Jesus on the Way, Mayo considers the implications of Jesus’ discipleship teachings for would-be disciples both then and now. This book is written to challenge 21st century believers to deepen their walk with Jesus, and to choose to take up that proverbial cross and follow him daily.

Is the version of Jesus we talk about and preach in our churches the same Jesus that is revealed to us in the scriptures? Is there such a thing as discipleship without self-denial and sacrifice? Is our idea of the American dream and having it all compatible with what the Bible says about the cost of discipleship? In this book, Joshua West will ask these questions and talk about what it means to pick up your cross and follow Jesus in the twenty-first century.