Costly Grace

Frequently I read books devotionally.  (This may just be a "spiritual" way to say that I read books slowly.)    In the course of doing this for several years, I have encountered a number of authors and books who have rocked my world - Chan's The Forgotten God, Manning's The Furious Longing of God, Pratt's Radical, Claiborne's Jesus For President, and others.  I now working into another one - Jon Walker's Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.

With the Second World War and the Holocaust on the horizon,  German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted with pain that much of West Christianity had been reduced to an easy, peripheral, low-cost lifestyle support system.  Jesus had been reshaped as a cosmic security system/lifeguard/complaint department, to protect our circumstantial happiness, health, success, and comfort if a person enjoyed those blessings, or to secure them if a person did not.  Bonhoeffer bemoaned that Jesus was the equivalent of our present day 911; valued if needed, and ignored if not. Against this, Bonhoeffer argued for a faith that yielded completely to a Jesus who changed lives and upended the world's value systems.  He famously championed the truth that the grace of God in Jesus is free, but it is not cheap.  Jesus does not invite us to come and be pampered, Bonhoeffer insisted; Jesus invites us to come and die.  Pastor Bonhoeffer did not just preach this; he lived it.  (Google him.  It's worth it.)

In the spirit of Bonhoeffer, Walker writes this:  "Do we follow dogma instead of Jesus?  Do we create impersonal discipleship models that are hopelessly irrelevant to our personal lives?  Do we preach, teach, and discuss the same biblical concepts over and over again-our favorite ones-at the expense of others that are just as important?  Do we follow Jesus based more on our own opinions and convictions, and to little on the commands of Christ?...We must look to Jesus and no where else for our answers.  We must know a Christ who is real and solid, and this knowing doesn't come from conveniently memorizing Bible facts and comfortably studying theological systems.  It comes from the willingness  to pay the cost of knowing him and sacrificially living out of what we believe to be true of him." (Page 22.)

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.  I anticipate rough and exciting waters ahead.