Q&N: The Cost of Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

from
The Cost of Discipleship
by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Cost of Discipleship translated from the German Nachfolge by R.H. Fuller with some revision by Irmgard Booth Copyright © 1959 SCM Press Ltd Nachfolge first published 1937 (continued)
II. The Sermon on the Mount
St Matthew 5 — Of the “Extraordinariness” of the Christian Life
6 The Beatitudes	Matthew 5:1–12
Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all.
7 The Visible Community	Matthew 5:13–16
Again, it is: “Ye are the salt,” not “Ye have the salt.” By identifying the salt with the apostolic proclamation the Reformers robbed the saying of all its sting. No, the word speaks of their whole existence in so far as it is grounded anew in the call of Christ, that same existence which was the burden of the beatitudes. The call of Christ makes those who respond to it the salt of the earth in their total existence.
How impossible, how utterly absurd it would be for the disciples—these disciples, such men as these!—to try and become the light of the world! No, they are already the light, and the call has made them so. Nor does Jesus say: “You have the light.” The light is not an instrument which has been put into their hands, such as their preaching. It is the disciples themselves.
Once again we are confronted with an alternative; the light may be covered of its own choice; it may be extinguished under a bushel, and the call may be denied. The bushel may be the fear of men, or perhaps deliberate conformity to the world for some ulterior motive, a missionary purpose for example, or a sentimental humanitarianism. But the motive may be more sinister than that; it may be “Reformation theology” which boldly claims the name of theologia crucis, and pretends to prefer to Pharisaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world.
8 The Righteousness of Christ	Matthew 5:17–20
After all Jesus had said, the disciples might well have thought like Marcion, who accused the Jews of tampering with the text, and altered it to: “Think ye that I am come to fulfil the law and the prophets? I am not come to fulfil, but to destroy.” Many others since Marcion have read and expounded this saying of Jesus as if that were what he said. But Jesus says: “You must not imagine that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. . . .” And so saying he vindicates the authority of the law of the old covenant.
Again, it is not enough to teach the law of Christ, it must be done, otherwise it is no better than the old law. In what follows the disciples are told how to practise this righteousness of Christ. In a word, it means following him.
9 The Brother	Matthew 5:21–26
When we come before God with hearts full of contempt and unreconciled with our neighbours, we are, both individually and as a congregation, worshipping an idol. So long as we refuse to love and serve our brother and make him an object of contempt and let him harbour a grudge against me or the congregation, our worship and sacrifice will be unacceptable to God. Not just the fact that I am angry, but the fact that there is somebody who has been hurt, damaged and disgraced by me, who “has a cause against me,” erects a barrier between me and God. Let us therefore as a Church examine ourselves, and see whether we have not often enough wronged our fellow-men. [...] The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man. He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar. There is therefore only one way of following Jesus and of worshipping God, and that is to be reconciled with our brethren.
11 Truthfulness	Matthew 5:33–37
In the early Church the commonest interpretation was that “perfect” Christians were forbidden to swear at all, but the weaker brethren were allowed to swear within certain limits. Augustine represents this latter point of view. He found himself in agreement with the teaching of Plato, the Pythagoreans, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and other pagan philosophers, who maintained that oaths were beneath the dignity of gentlemen. In the Reformation Confessions it is expressly affirmed that there can be no question of Jesus prohibiting oaths exacted by the state in a court of law.
If lying were unknown, there would be no need for oaths. Oaths are intended as a barrier against untruthfulness. But it goes further than that: for there, where alone the oath claims final truth, is space in life given to the lie, and it is granted a certain right of life. The Old Testament had expressed its condemnation of the lie by the use of the oath. But Jesus destroys the lie by forbidding oaths altogether.	Topic: Oaths
Since the profession of Christianity does not confer an infallible knowledge of the past, the invocation of almighty God will serve only to establish the integrity of his mind and conscience but not to confirm a statement which after all may be open to error. Moreover, since he is never lord of his own future, he will always be extremely cautious about giving a pledge (e.g. an oath of allegiance), for he is aware how dangerous it is to do so. And if his own future is outside his own control, how much more is the future of the authority which demands the oath of allegiance! For the sake of the truth, therefore, and for the sake of his following of Christ, he cannot swear such an oath without the proviso, “God willing.”
12 Revenge	Matthew 5:38–42
The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it. This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law. The Church is not to be a national community like the old Israel, but a community of believers without political or national ties. The old Israel had been both—the chosen people of God and a national community, and it was therefore his will that they should meet force with force. But with the Church it is different: it has abandoned political and national status, and therefore it must patiently endure aggression. Otherwise evil will be heaped upon evil. Only thus can fellowship be established and maintained. At this point it becomes evident that when a Christian meets with injustice, he no longer clings to his rights and defends them at all costs. He is absolutely free from possessions and bound to Christ alone.	Topic: Vengeance
Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy in his own coin, and by preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence. [...] By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego.
The Reformers offered a decisively new interpretation of this passage, and contributed a new idea of paramount importance. They distinguished between personal sufferings and those incurred by Christians in the performance of duty as bearers of an office ordained by God, maintaining that the precept of non-violence applies to the first but not to the second. In the second case we are not only freed from obligation to eschew violence, but if we want to act in a genuine spirit of love we must do the very opposite, and meet force with force in order to check the assault of evil. It was along these lines that the Reformers justified war and other legal sanctions against evil. But this distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty.
13 The Enemy—the “Extraordinary”	Matthew 5:43–48
The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy’s hatred. For then it is not the disciple’s own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there. In the face of the cross the disciples realized that they too were his enemies, and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciple’s eyes, and enables him to see his enemy as a brother. [...] The disciple can now perceive that even his enemy is the object of God’s love, and that he stands like himself beneath the cross of Christ. [...] Perfect, all-inclusive love is the act of the Father, it is also the act of the sons of God as it was the act of the only-begotten Son.
What does it really mean to be a Christian? Here we meet the word which controls the whole chapter, and sums up all we have heard so far. What make the Christian different from other men is the “peculiar” the περισσόν, the “extraordinary,” the “unusual,” that which is not “a matter of course.” This is the quality whereby the better righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. It is “the more,” the “beyond-all-that.” [...] It is this quality which first enables us to see the natural in its true light. Where it is lacking, the peculiar graces of Christianity are absent. It cannot occur within the sphere of natural possibilities, but only when they are transcended. [...] That was the fatal mistake of the false Protestant ethic which diluted Christian love into patriotism, loyalty to friends and industriousness, which in short, perverted the better righteousness into justitia civilis. Not in such terms as these does Jesus speak. For him the hall-mark of the Christian is the “extraordinary.” Note (Hal’s): That key word, in verse 47, is represented simply by “more” in two well-known English translations: the Authorized (“King James”) Version and the Revised Standard Version. — end note
St Matthew 6 — Of the Hidden Character of the Christian Life
14 The Hidden Righteousness	Matthew 6:1–4
The better righteousness of the disciples must have a motive which lies beyond itself. Of course it has to be visible, but they must take care that it does not become visible simply for the sake of becoming visible. [...] We have to take heed that we do not take heed of our own righteousness. Otherwise the “extraordinary” which we achieve will not be that which comes from following Christ, but that which springs from our own will and desire.
All that the follower of Jesus has to do is to make sure that his obedience, following and love are entirely spontaneous and unpremeditated. If you do good, you must not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, you must be quite unconscious of it. Otherwise you are simply displaying your own virtue, and not that which has its source in Jesus Christ. [...] The genuine work of love is always a hidden work. Take heed therefore that you know it not, for only so is it the goodness of God. If we want to know our own goodness or love, it has already ceased to be love.
Because love is hidden it cannot be a visible virtue or a habit which can be acquired. Take heed, it says, that you do not exchange true love for an amiable virtuousness, a human “quality.” Genuine love is always self-forgetful in the true sense of the word. But if we are to have it, our old man must die with all his virtues and qualities, and this can only be done where the disciple forgets self and clings solely to Christ.
15 The Hiddenness of Prayer	Matthew 6:5–8
Genuine prayer is never “good works,” an exercise or a pious attitude, but it is always the prayer of a child to a Father. Hence it is never given to self-display, whether before God, ourselves, or other people. If God were ignorant of our needs, we should have to think out beforehand how we should tell him about them, what we should tell him, and whether we should tell him or not. Thus faith, which is the mainspring of Christian prayer, excludes all reflection and premeditation. Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life. It is the antithesis of self-display. When men pray, they have ceased to know themselves, and know only God whom they call upon. Prayer does not aim at any direct effect on the world; it is addressed to God alone, and is therefore the perfect example of undemonstrative action.	Topic: Prayer
Prayer of this kind can seek self-display, it can seek to bring to light that which is hidden. This may happen in public prayer, which sometimes (though not often nowadays) degenerates into an empty noise. But there is no difference; it is even more pernicious if I turn myself into a spectator of my own prayer performance, if I am giving a show for my own benefit. [...] I am listening to my own prayer and thus I am answering my own prayer. Not being content to wait for God to answer our prayer and show us in his own time that he has heard us, we provide our own answer. We take note that we have prayed suitably well, and this substitutes the satisfaction of answered prayer. We have our reward. Since we have heard ourselves, God will not hear us.
16 The Hiddenness of the Devout Life	Matthew 6:16–18
The spirit assents when Jesus bids us love our enemies, but flesh and blood are too strong and prevent our carrying it out. Therefore we have to practise strictest daily discipline; only so can the flesh learn the painful lesson that it has no rights of its own. Regular daily prayer is a great help here, and so is daily meditation on the Word of God, and every kind of bodily discipline and asceticism. The flesh resists this daily humiliation, first by a frontal attack, and later by hiding itself under the words of the spirit (i.e. in the name of “evangelical liberty”). [...] Any objection that asceticism is wrong, and that all we need is faith, is quite beside the point; it is cruel to suggest such a thing, and it is no help to us at all. When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an undending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.
17 The Simplicity of the Carefree Life	Matthew 6:19–24
Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. In the wilderness God gave Israel the manna every day, and they had no need to worry about food and drink. Indeed, if they kept any of the manna over until the next day, it went bad. In the same way, the disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, he spoils not only the gift, but himself as well, for he sets his heart on his accumulated wealth, and makes it a barrier between hinself and God. [...] Hoarding is idolatry.	Topic: Wealth
The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to‑day. [...] If instead of receiving God’s gifts for to‑day we worry about tomorrow, we find ourselves helpless victims of infinite anxiety.
Only God can take care, for it is he who rules the world. Since we cannot take care, since we are so completely powerless, we ought not to do it either. If we do, we are dethroning God and presuming to rule the world ourselves.
Before we start taking thought for our life, our food and clothing, our work and families, we must seek the righteousness of Christ. This is no more than an ultimate summing up of all that has been said before. Again we have here either a crushing burden, which holds out no hope for the poor and wretched, or else it is the quintessence of the gospel, which brings the promise of freedom and perfect joy. Jesus does not tell us what we ought to do but cannot; he tells us what God has given us and promises still to give.
St Matthew 7 — The Separation of the Disciple Community
18 The Disciple and Unbelievers	Matthew 7:1–12
Do Christians enjoy power, gifts and standards of judgement which qualify them to exert a peculiar authority over others? How easy it would have been for the disciples to adopt a superior attitude, to pass unqualified condemnation on the rest of the world, and to persuade themselves that this was the will of God! That is why Jesus has to make it clear beyond all doubt that such misunderstandings would seriously impair their discipleship. The disciples are not to judge. If they do so, they will themselves be judged by God.
When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.
If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves, for we are seeking to escape punishment for our own sins by passing judgement on others, and we are assuming by implication that the Word of God applies to ourselves in one way, and to others in another. [...] We are trying to claim for ourselves a special privilege which we deny to others.
An ideology requires fanatics, who neither know nor notice opposition, and it is certainly a potent force. But the Word of God in its weakness takes the risk of meeting the scorn of men and being rejected. There are hearts which are hardened and doors which are closed to the Word. The Word recognizes opposition when it meets it, and is prepared to suffer it. It is a hard lesson, but a true one, that the gospel, unlike an ideology, reckons with impossibilities.
19 The Great Divide	Matthew 7:13–23
First came the division between Church and world, then the division within the Church, and then the final division on the last day. There is nothing left for us to cling to, not even our confession or our obedience. There is only his word: “I have known thee,” which is his eternal word and call.
20 The Conclusion	Matthew 7:24–29
The only proper response to this word which Jesus brings with him from eternity is simply to do it. Jesus has spoken: his is the word, ours the obedience. [...] There is only one other possibility, that of failing to do it. It is impossible to want to do it and yet not do it. To deal with the word of Jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and to say No to his word. If we start asking questions, posing problems, and offering interpretations, we are not doing his word.
Quotes & notes from The Cost of Discipleship continue here.
text checked (see note) Jan 2025

The Cost of Discipleship
translated from the German Nachfolge by R.H. Fuller
with some revision by Irmgard Booth

(continued)

II. The Sermon on the Mount

St Matthew 5 — Of the “Extraordinariness” of the Christian Life

6

The Beatitudes

Matthew 5:1–12

Having reached the end of the beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the poorest, meekest, and most sorely tried of all men is to be found—on the cross at Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified. With him it has lost all, and with him it has found all.

7

The Visible Community

Matthew 5:13–16

Again, it is: “Ye are the salt,” not “Ye have the salt.” By identifying the salt with the apostolic proclamation the Reformers robbed the saying of all its sting. No, the word speaks of their whole existence in so far as it is grounded anew in the call of Christ, that same existence which was the burden of the beatitudes. The call of Christ makes those who respond to it the salt of the earth in their total existence.

How impossible, how utterly absurd it would be for the disciples—these disciples, such men as these!—to try and become the light of the world! No, they are already the light, and the call has made them so. Nor does Jesus say: “You have the light.” The light is not an instrument which has been put into their hands, such as their preaching. It is the disciples themselves.

Once again we are confronted with an alternative; the light may be covered of its own choice; it may be extinguished under a bushel, and the call may be denied. The bushel may be the fear of men, or perhaps deliberate conformity to the world for some ulterior motive, a missionary purpose for example, or a sentimental humanitarianism. But the motive may be more sinister than that; it may be “Reformation theology” which boldly claims the name of theologia crucis, and pretends to prefer to Pharisaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world.

8

The Righteousness of Christ

Matthew 5:17–20

After all Jesus had said, the disciples might well have thought like Marcion, who accused the Jews of tampering with the text, and altered it to: “Think ye that I am come to fulfil the law and the prophets? I am not come to fulfil, but to destroy.” Many others since Marcion have read and expounded this saying of Jesus as if that were what he said. But Jesus says: “You must not imagine that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. . . .” And so saying he vindicates the authority of the law of the old covenant.

Again, it is not enough to teach the law of Christ, it must be done, otherwise it is no better than the old law. In what follows the disciples are told how to practise this righteousness of Christ. In a word, it means following him.

9

The Brother

Matthew 5:21–26

When we come before God with hearts full of contempt and unreconciled with our neighbours, we are, both individually and as a congregation, worshipping an idol. So long as we refuse to love and serve our brother and make him an object of contempt and let him harbour a grudge against me or the congregation, our worship and sacrifice will be unacceptable to God. Not just the fact that I am angry, but the fact that there is somebody who has been hurt, damaged and disgraced by me, who “has a cause against me,” erects a barrier between me and God. Let us therefore as a Church examine ourselves, and see whether we have not often enough wronged our fellow-men. [...] The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man. He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar.

There is therefore only one way of following Jesus and of worshipping God, and that is to be reconciled with our brethren.

11

Truthfulness

Matthew 5:33–37

In the early Church the commonest interpretation was that “perfect” Christians were forbidden to swear at all, but the weaker brethren were allowed to swear within certain limits. Augustine represents this latter point of view. He found himself in agreement with the teaching of Plato, the Pythagoreans, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and other pagan philosophers, who maintained that oaths were beneath the dignity of gentlemen. In the Reformation Confessions it is expressly affirmed that there can be no question of Jesus prohibiting oaths exacted by the state in a court of law.

If lying were unknown, there would be no need for oaths. Oaths are intended as a barrier against untruthfulness. But it goes further than that: for there, where alone the oath claims final truth, is space in life given to the lie, and it is granted a certain right of life. The Old Testament had expressed its condemnation of the lie by the use of the oath. But Jesus destroys the lie by forbidding oaths altogether.

Topic:

Oaths

Since the profession of Christianity does not confer an infallible knowledge of the past, the invocation of almighty God will serve only to establish the integrity of his mind and conscience but not to confirm a statement which after all may be open to error. Moreover, since he is never lord of his own future, he will always be extremely cautious about giving a pledge (e.g. an oath of allegiance), for he is aware how dangerous it is to do so. And if his own future is outside his own control, how much more is the future of the authority which demands the oath of allegiance! For the sake of the truth, therefore, and for the sake of his following of Christ, he cannot swear such an oath without the proviso, “God willing.”

12

Revenge

Matthew 5:38–42

The right way to requite evil, according to Jesus, is not to resist it.

This saying of Christ removes the Church from the sphere of politics and law. The Church is not to be a national community like the old Israel, but a community of believers without political or national ties. The old Israel had been both—the chosen people of God and a national community, and it was therefore his will that they should meet force with force. But with the Church it is different: it has abandoned political and national status, and therefore it must patiently endure aggression. Otherwise evil will be heaped upon evil. Only thus can fellowship be established and maintained.

At this point it becomes evident that when a Christian meets with injustice, he no longer clings to his rights and defends them at all costs. He is absolutely free from possessions and bound to Christ alone.

Topic:

Vengeance

Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy in his own coin, and by preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence. [...] By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego.

The Reformers offered a decisively new interpretation of this passage, and contributed a new idea of paramount importance. They distinguished between personal sufferings and those incurred by Christians in the performance of duty as bearers of an office ordained by God, maintaining that the precept of non-violence applies to the first but not to the second. In the second case we are not only freed from obligation to eschew violence, but if we want to act in a genuine spirit of love we must do the very opposite, and meet force with force in order to check the assault of evil. It was along these lines that the Reformers justified war and other legal sanctions against evil. But this distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty.

13

The Enemy—the “Extraordinary”

Matthew 5:43–48

The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy’s hatred. For then it is not the disciple’s own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there. In the face of the cross the disciples realized that they too were his enemies, and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciple’s eyes, and enables him to see his enemy as a brother. [...] The disciple can now perceive that even his enemy is the object of God’s love, and that he stands like himself beneath the cross of Christ. [...] Perfect, all-inclusive love is the act of the Father, it is also the act of the sons of God as it was the act of the only-begotten Son.

What does it really mean to be a Christian? Here we meet the word which controls the whole chapter, and sums up all we have heard so far. What make the Christian different from other men is the “peculiar” the περισσόν, the “extraordinary,” the “unusual,” that which is not “a matter of course.” This is the quality whereby the better righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. It is “the more,” the “beyond-all-that.” [...] It is this quality which first enables us to see the natural in its true light. Where it is lacking, the peculiar graces of Christianity are absent. It cannot occur within the sphere of natural possibilities, but only when they are transcended. [...] That was the fatal mistake of the false Protestant ethic which diluted Christian love into patriotism, loyalty to friends and industriousness, which in short, perverted the better righteousness into justitia civilis. Not in such terms as these does Jesus speak. For him the hall-mark of the Christian is the “extraordinary.”

Note (Hal’s):
That key word, in verse 47, is represented simply by “more” in two well-known English translations: the Authorized (“King James”) Version and the Revised Standard Version.

— end note

St Matthew 6 — Of the Hidden Character of the Christian Life

14

The Hidden Righteousness

Matthew 6:1–4

The better righteousness of the disciples must have a motive which lies beyond itself. Of course it has to be visible, but they must take care that it does not become visible simply for the sake of becoming visible. [...] We have to take heed that we do not take heed of our own righteousness. Otherwise the “extraordinary” which we achieve will not be that which comes from following Christ, but that which springs from our own will and desire.

All that the follower of Jesus has to do is to make sure that his obedience, following and love are entirely spontaneous and unpremeditated. If you do good, you must not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, you must be quite unconscious of it. Otherwise you are simply displaying your own virtue, and not that which has its source in Jesus Christ. [...] The genuine work of love is always a hidden work. Take heed therefore that you know it not, for only so is it the goodness of God. If we want to know our own goodness or love, it has already ceased to be love.

Because love is hidden it cannot be a visible virtue or a habit which can be acquired. Take heed, it says, that you do not exchange true love for an amiable virtuousness, a human “quality.” Genuine love is always self-forgetful in the true sense of the word. But if we are to have it, our old man must die with all his virtues and qualities, and this can only be done where the disciple forgets self and clings solely to Christ.

15

The Hiddenness of Prayer

Matthew 6:5–8

Genuine prayer is never “good works,” an exercise or a pious attitude, but it is always the prayer of a child to a Father. Hence it is never given to self-display, whether before God, ourselves, or other people. If God were ignorant of our needs, we should have to think out beforehand how we should tell him about them, what we should tell him, and whether we should tell him or not. Thus faith, which is the mainspring of Christian prayer, excludes all reflection and premeditation.

Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life. It is the antithesis of self-display. When men pray, they have ceased to know themselves, and know only God whom they call upon. Prayer does not aim at any direct effect on the world; it is addressed to God alone, and is therefore the perfect example of undemonstrative action.

Topic:

Prayer

Prayer of this kind can seek self-display, it can seek to bring to light that which is hidden. This may happen in public prayer, which sometimes (though not often nowadays) degenerates into an empty noise. But there is no difference; it is even more pernicious if I turn myself into a spectator of my own prayer performance, if I am giving a show for my own benefit. [...] I am listening to my own prayer and thus I am answering my own prayer. Not being content to wait for God to answer our prayer and show us in his own time that he has heard us, we provide our own answer. We take note that we have prayed suitably well, and this substitutes the satisfaction of answered prayer. We have our reward. Since we have heard ourselves, God will not hear us.

16

The Hiddenness of the Devout Life

Matthew 6:16–18

The spirit assents when Jesus bids us love our enemies, but flesh and blood are too strong and prevent our carrying it out. Therefore we have to practise strictest daily discipline; only so can the flesh learn the painful lesson that it has no rights of its own. Regular daily prayer is a great help here, and so is daily meditation on the Word of God, and every kind of bodily discipline and asceticism.

The flesh resists this daily humiliation, first by a frontal attack, and later by hiding itself under the words of the spirit (i.e. in the name of “evangelical liberty”). [...] Any objection that asceticism is wrong, and that all we need is faith, is quite beside the point; it is cruel to suggest such a thing, and it is no help to us at all. When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an undending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.

17

The Simplicity of the Carefree Life

Matthew 6:19–24

Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. In the wilderness God gave Israel the manna every day, and they had no need to worry about food and drink. Indeed, if they kept any of the manna over until the next day, it went bad. In the same way, the disciple must receive his portion from God every day. If he stores it up as a permanent possession, he spoils not only the gift, but himself as well, for he sets his heart on his accumulated wealth, and makes it a barrier between hinself and God. [...] Hoarding is idolatry.

Topic:

Wealth

The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to‑day. [...] If instead of receiving God’s gifts for to‑day we worry about tomorrow, we find ourselves helpless victims of infinite anxiety.

Only God can take care, for it is he who rules the world. Since we cannot take care, since we are so completely powerless, we ought not to do it either. If we do, we are dethroning God and presuming to rule the world ourselves.

Before we start taking thought for our life, our food and clothing, our work and families, we must seek the righteousness of Christ. This is no more than an ultimate summing up of all that has been said before. Again we have here either a crushing burden, which holds out no hope for the poor and wretched, or else it is the quintessence of the gospel, which brings the promise of freedom and perfect joy. Jesus does not tell us what we ought to do but cannot; he tells us what God has given us and promises still to give.

St Matthew 7 — The Separation of the Disciple Community

18

The Disciple and Unbelievers

Matthew 7:1–12

Do Christians enjoy power, gifts and standards of judgement which qualify them to exert a peculiar authority over others? How easy it would have been for the disciples to adopt a superior attitude, to pass unqualified condemnation on the rest of the world, and to persuade themselves that this was the will of God! That is why Jesus has to make it clear beyond all doubt that such misunderstandings would seriously impair their discipleship. The disciples are not to judge. If they do so, they will themselves be judged by God.

When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.

If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves, for we are seeking to escape punishment for our own sins by passing judgement on others, and we are assuming by implication that the Word of God applies to ourselves in one way, and to others in another. [...] We are trying to claim for ourselves a special privilege which we deny to others.

An ideology requires fanatics, who neither know nor notice opposition, and it is certainly a potent force. But the Word of God in its weakness takes the risk of meeting the scorn of men and being rejected. There are hearts which are hardened and doors which are closed to the Word. The Word recognizes opposition when it meets it, and is prepared to suffer it. It is a hard lesson, but a true one, that the gospel, unlike an ideology, reckons with impossibilities.

19

The Great Divide

Matthew 7:13–23

First came the division between Church and world, then the division within the Church, and then the final division on the last day. There is nothing left for us to cling to, not even our confession or our obedience. There is only his word: “I have known thee,” which is his eternal word and call.

20

The Conclusion

Matthew 7:24–29

The only proper response to this word which Jesus brings with him from eternity is simply to do it. Jesus has spoken: his is the word, ours the obedience. [...]

There is only one other possibility, that of failing to do it. It is impossible to want to do it and yet not do it. To deal with the word of Jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and to say No to his word. If we start asking questions, posing problems, and offering interpretations, we are not doing his word.

Quotes & notes from The Cost of Discipleship continue here.

text checked (see note) Jan 2025

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fromThe Cost of DiscipleshipbyDietrich Bonhoeffer

from
The Cost of Discipleship
by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer