Bonhoeffer book

I want the book "THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP" in Logos.

Is Discipleship (Reader’s Edition) that book?

if so, what does "Reader's Edition" mean

if so, why do they not use the title everyone refers to it as (The Cost of Discipleship) ?

I ended up buying

Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship

by Jon Walker

I was thinking he just did the forward, obviously wrong.
As I kept reading all of the comments started showing up like "Bonhoeffer says" etc.

Wishing to buy the book. Looks like the audio is available.
Will need to return the above book I believe, unless others have a different opinion.

Thanks, Mike

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Bruce Dunning

The book formerly called "The Cost of Discipleship" is now called "Discipleship" - https://www.logos.com/product/162882/discipleship I'm not sure when they added (Reader's Edition) but my guess is that this was done after the book was offered in audio format.

Anyhow, I have this book and can confirm that it is the same as the original "The Cost of Discipleship".

If you purchased the wrong book you can contact customer service and they will give you a refund.

Ken McGuire

For better or worse, publishers often pick the title they want when they see a work. In 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer published a work in German called Nachfolge. After Bonhoeffer did indeed die as a result of living out what he understood as his calling as a Christian, this work was translated into English and published as The Cost of Discipleship with somewhat different organization of the chapters than the original. When the German critical edition of Bonhoeffer was translated into English, they decided to try to go with a more direct translation of the original title, as well as using the original chapter organization.

Discipleship as published by Fortress and republished in Logos edition has quite valuable footnotes that try to explain what Bonhoeffer was actually referencing in the theological discussion of his day. In addition it is part of a complete edition of Bonhoeffer that attempts to translate his theological vocabulary consistently. It is by far the best English edition for any form of Bonhoeffer studies. That said, The Cost of Discipleship has become a spiritual classic in some circles in English and to some extent has a life of its own at this point. While I personally am not intimidated by the scholarly apparatus, there are certainly some for whom this is not the case.

To not scare off readers who are not interested in the detailed scholarship, often there is a Readers Edition that is based on the full work, that removes some of the extensive critical apparatus, while giving more readers the same base text as scholars now use - often at a less scary price, since you do not have to pay for all the work that you do not have. It appears they have done this with Bonhoeffer. I have not used this, however, and so cannot say how well it suits any particular purpose. That said, I suspect it does it quite well for those who want to hear Bonhoeffer and not be dragged into the Book of Concord, Karl Barth, and the details behind Nazi church as the footnotes in the edition I have does.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091330#Comment_1091330

As an alternative to the 'readers' edition take a look at: https://www.logos.com/product/39939/dietrich-bonhoeffer-works-vol-4-discipleship

For better or worse, publishers often pick the title they want when they see a work. In 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer published a work in German called Nachfolge. After Bonhoeffer did indeed die as a result of living out what he understood as his calling as a Christian, this work was translated into English and published as The Cost of Discipleship with somewhat different organization of the chapters than the original. When the German critical edition of Bonhoeffer was translated into English, they decided to try to go with a more direct translation of the original title, as well as using the original chapter organization.

Discipleship as published by Fortress and republished in Logos edition has quite valuable footnotes that try to explain what Bonhoeffer was actually referencing in the theological discussion of his day. In addition it is part of a complete edition of Bonhoeffer that attempts to translate his theological vocabulary consistently. It is by far the best English edition for any form of Bonhoeffer studies. That said, The Cost of Discipleship has become a spiritual classic in some circles in English and to some extent has a life of its own at this point. While I personally am not intimidated by the scholarly apparatus, there are certainly some for whom this is not the case.

To not scare off readers who are not interested in the detailed scholarship, often there is a Readers Edition that is based on the full work, that removes some of the extensive critical apparatus, while giving more readers the same base text as scholars now use - often at a less scary price, since you do not have to pay for all the work that you do not have. It appears they have done this with Bonhoeffer. I have not used this, however, and so cannot say how well it suits any particular purpose. That said, I suspect it does it quite well for those who want to hear Bonhoeffer and not be dragged into the Book of Concord, Karl Barth, and the details behind Nazi church as the footnotes in the edition I have does.

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091333#Comment_1091333

As an alternative to the 'readers' edition take a look at: https://www.logos.com/product/39939/dietrich-bonhoeffer-works-vol-4-discipleship

Well, I had already linked that.

Discipleship as published by Fortress and republished in Logos edition has quite valuable footnotes

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091339#Comment_1091339

As an alternative to the 'readers' edition take a look at: https://www.logos.com/product/39939/dietrich-bonhoeffer-works-vol-4-discipleship

Well, I had already linked that.

Discipleship as published by Fortress and republished in Logos edition has quite valuable footnotes

Sorry Ken, I missed you had linked to it.

Michael Wert

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091361#Comment_1091361

Thanks for everyone’s help. I decided to go with Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4: Discipleship. Looks like this is his most popular book with “additional footnotes and detailed scholarship.” I’m know this is much more than what I probably need. His name keeps coming up in other references.

Mike

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091371#Comment_1091371

I decided to go with Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4: Discipleship.

This is a classic book that should be in everyone's library! [Y]

Michael Wert

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091401#Comment_1091401

Making my way thru but

a little insight below about Bonhoeffer and Luther, WOW!

Below half way thru Ch. 1 on “cheep grace” and Costly Grace”

The expansion of Christianity and the increasing secularization of the church caused the awareness of costly grace to be gradually lost. The world was Christianized; grace became common property of a Christian world. It could be had cheaply. But the Roman church did keep a remnant of that original awareness. It was decisive that monasticism did not separate from the church and that the church had the good sense to tolerate monasticism. Here, on the boundary of the church, was the place where the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship was preserved. People left everything they had for the sake of Christ and tried to follow Jesus’ strict commandments through daily exercise. Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace. But because the church tolerated this protest and did not permit it to build up to a final explosion, the church relativized it. It even gained from the protest a justification for its own secular life. For now monastic life became the extraordinary achievement of individuals, to which the majority of church members need not be obligated. The fateful limiting of the validity of Jesus’ commandments to a certain group of especially qualified people led to differentiating between highest achievement and lowest performance in Christian obedience. This made it possible, when the secularization of the church was attacked any further, to point to the possibility of the monastic way within the church, alongside which another possibility, that of an easier way, was also justified. Thus, calling attention to the original Christian understanding of costly grace as it was retained in the Roman church through monasticism enabled the church paradoxically to give final legitimacy to its own secularization. But the decisive mistake of monasticism was not that it followed the grace-laden path of strict discipleship, even with all of monasticism’s misunderstandings of the contents of the will of Jesus. Rather, the mistake was that monasticism essentially distanced itself from what is Christian by permitting its way to become the extraordinary achievement of a few, thereby claiming a special meritoriousness for itself.

During the Reformation, God reawakened the gospel of pure, costly grace through God’s servant Martin Luther by leading him through the monastery. Luther was a monk. He had left everything and wanted to follow Christ in complete obedience. He renounced the world and turned to Christian works. He learned obedience to Christ and his church, because he knew that only those who are obedient can believe. Luther invested his whole life in his call to the monastery. It was God who caused Luther to fail on that path. God showed him through scripture that discipleship is not the meritorious achievement of individuals, but a divine commandment to all Christians. The humble work of discipleship had become in monasticism the meritorious work of the holy ones. The self-denial of the disciple is revealed here as the final spiritual self-affirmation of the especially pious. This meant that the world had broken into the middle of monastic life and was at work again in a most dangerous way. Luther saw the monk’s escape from the world as really a subtle love for the world. In this shattering of his last possibility to achieve a pious life, grace seized Luther. In the collapse of the monastic world, he saw God’s saving hand reaching out in Christ. He seized it in the faith that “our deeds are in vain, even in the best life.” It was a costly grace, which gave itself to him. It shattered his whole existence. Once again, he had to leave his nets and follow. The first time, when he entered the monastery, he left everything behind except himself, his pious self. This time even that was taken from him. He followed, not by his own merit, but by God’s grace. He was not told, yes, you have sinned, but now all that is forgiven. Continue on where you were and comfort yourself with forgiveness! Luther had to leave the monastery and reenter the world, not because the world itself was good and holy, but because even the monastery was nothing else but world.^{[23]^[1]}

^{^[1]} Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 46–48.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1091408#Comment_1091408

Making my way thru but

a little insight below about Bonhoeffer and Luther, WOW!

Below half way thru Ch. 1 on “cheep grace” and Costly Grace”

That's why I said it is a classic. He has made the expression "cheap grace" popular in our day.