Week 1: Introduction — Costly Grace vs. Cheap Grace

1.Bonhoeffer's opening salvo is: "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church." Before engaging his argument, what does that phrase stir up in you? Does it sound liberating, alarming, or unfair?

2.Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as "the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession." In your own words, what makes grace "cheap" in his framework — and why does he call it deadly rather than merely inadequate?

3.He then defines costly grace: "It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." How does this paradox — that the most demanding thing is also the most freeing — sit with you? Can you think of an experience in your own life where something costly turned out to be genuinely freeing?

4.Bonhoeffer argues that the Lutheran Reformation recovered costly grace but that within a generation, Lutheranism began mass-producing cheap grace — treating the doctrine of justification by faith as a license to live unchanged. Do you see a similar dynamic in any Christian traditions or communities you have been part of?

5.He describes the tragic figure of a Christian who, wanting to live fully in the world, grants himself absolution and goes on unchanged — and then says that such a person has cheapened both grace and the cross. What does this reveal about the relationship between how we think about grace and how we actually live?

6.Bonhoeffer says that costly grace is "the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows." How does locating grace in a specific, personal call from Jesus change its character compared to locating grace in a doctrine or theological system?

7.He famously writes, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." How does this connect to the gospel itself — to the death and resurrection of Jesus? Is Bonhoeffer being morbid, or is he pointing to something at the heart of Christian identity?

8.As you begin this book, what do you most hope to gain — and what are you most afraid of having challenged?