What to read next
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship as a direct challenge to "cheap grace" — the comfortable Christianity that asks for belief but not obedience — and calls readers instead to a costly, wholehearted following of Jesus. It is a demanding, theologically dense book, and groups that finish its 13 sessions often want either a companion piece that fills out Bonhoeffer's own vision of community, or a book that carries the same call to serious, obedient faith in a different key. Some leaders look next for something equally weighty and formational, while others want a shorter or more practical book to give the group a breather without losing the thread of costly discipleship. The eight books below cover both directions.
Our The Cost of Discipleship guide runs 13 sessions with 96 discussion questions.
These are guides from our own catalog, ordered by how much each book shares with The Cost of Discipleship: subject and themes first, then the kind of group it suits, then the same author. It is an editorial comparison of what the books are about — not a ranking of which is better, and not a claim about what other groups chose.
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This is Bonhoeffer's own follow-through on discipleship lived out in community, written just a year later from his experience running an underground seminary. It is shorter than The Cost of Discipleship, 7 sessions instead of 13, and trades theological argument for a more practical, almost handbook-like reflection on what shared life in Christ actually requires.
by Eugene H. Peterson
Peterson shares Bonhoeffer's suspicion of easy, instant faith, framing discipleship instead as a slow, patient pilgrimage rather than a program. The study runs a bit longer, 14 sessions built around the Psalms of Ascent, and its tone is more pastoral and reflective than Bonhoeffer's bracing theological prose.
by Dallas Willard
Willard picks up Bonhoeffer's conviction that following Jesus means becoming a genuinely new kind of person, not just behaving better, and works out what that transformation involves across the whole self. At 15 sessions it is the longest and most systematic option here, useful for a group ready to slow down and go deep on the mechanics of spiritual formation.
by Kevin DeYoung
DeYoung shares Bonhoeffer's impatience with a Christianity that hedges and delays real obedience, though he aims that impatience at decision-making rather than at cheap grace. It is a shorter, more conversational study at 10 sessions, a good lighter read for a group that wants Bonhoeffer's directness without the theological weight.
by John Mark Comer
Comer's call to apprentice yourself to Jesus as a whole way of life echoes Bonhoeffer's rejection of discipleship as a mere add-on to ordinary living. The 12-session study is more contemporary and practice-oriented, built around forming daily habits rather than working through sustained theological argument.
by Henry Blackaby & Claude King
Blackaby shares Bonhoeffer's core claim that faith is a living relationship with a Person rather than a set of religious activities, and pushes a group to ask what obedience to God's present activity looks like. Spanning 14 sessions, it is more devotional and experience-focused, with a gentler tone than Bonhoeffer's confrontational style.
by John Mark Comer
Comer, like Bonhoeffer, is concerned with the false comforts that keep believers from real discipleship, though here the target is the lies of the devil, the flesh, and the world rather than cheap grace specifically. The 14-session study is more diagnostic and therapeutic in tone, useful for a group wanting to work through what blocks obedience before recommitting to it.
by Jerry Bridges
Bridges shares Bonhoeffer's refusal to let grace become an excuse for a low view of Christian living, insisting that holiness is a serious daily calling rather than optional. The 12-session study is more personal and practical than theological, a fitting next step for a group ready to apply Bonhoeffer's high call to everyday choices.
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