Week 1: Preface & Introduction — Discipleship in a World of Shortcuts

1.Peterson borrows his title from Friedrich Nietzsche, who lamented that the modern age had lost the capacity for "a long obedience in the same direction." What do you think Nietzsche meant by that, and why does Peterson find it such a fitting description of Christian discipleship?

2.Peterson describes two characteristic sins of the modern world that undermine discipleship: "the world's lies" and what he calls "the lure of the immediate." In your own experience, where do you feel the pull of instant results most strongly — in your spiritual life, your relationships, or elsewhere?

3.The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134) were pilgrim songs — sung on the road to Jerusalem, not from an armchair. What difference does it make to you that these are traveling songs, songs for people already in motion, rather than songs of arrival?

4.Leif Peterson's eulogy describes his father as someone who lived what he wrote — that the long obedience was not merely a theme but a biography. How does knowing that a book was embodied by its author change how you read it?

5.Peterson argues that the church is too often shaped more by the surrounding consumer culture than by the pilgrim tradition of Scripture. Where do you see the consumer mindset ("give me what I want, quickly, cheaply") showing up in how people today approach church or faith?

6.The word "disciple" shares a root with "discipline." Peterson insists discipleship is not just belief but a practiced, habitual way of life. What habits or practices — if any — currently structure your own walk with God?

7.Peterson frames the Songs of Ascents as a curriculum for growth in the following virtues: worship, repentance, joy, work, happiness, humility, obedience, community, service, perseverance, hope, and blessing. Which of those words feels most alive to you right now? Which feels most foreign or difficult?

8.How does the image of pilgrimage — a journey with a destination, taken in community, requiring endurance — challenge or reframe the way you have understood the Christian life up to this point?