Bonhoeffer's Costly Foundation

In 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer published The Cost of Discipleship, a book that drew a sharp line between what he called "cheap grace" and "costly grace." Cheap grace, he wrote, was "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross." It was the religion of those who called Jesus "Lord, Lord" but never submitted to His commands.

Bonhoeffer was not writing theory. As the Nazi regime tightened its grip on Germany, he watched pastors and theologians who knew Scripture intimately bend their convictions to accommodate the state. They could quote Jesus fluently. They preached eloquent sermons. But when the flood came, when the torrent of ideology crashed against their lives, their foundations crumbled.

Bonhoeffer chose differently. He returned to Germany from the safety of New York in 1939, writing to Reinhold Niebuhr, "I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people." He built his life not on comfortable words about Jesus but on costly obedience to Him.

On April 9, 1945, just weeks before the war ended, Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg concentration camp. The storm took his life, but it never broke his foundation. He had heard the words of Christ and done them. The house stood.