What is Reddit's opinion of The Cost of Discipleship?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

> If a christian keep sinning(same sin) and repent, will he achieve forgiveness?

1. No one “achieves” forgiveness. Forgiveness is God’s gift of mercy and grace (undeserved favor offered to those without merit.)

2. Everyone sins; even people who are saved. Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret; worldly grief produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:10

A saved sinner is redeemed through the work of the Holy Spirit and becomes a new creation in Christ. Redeemed sinners, who freely and willfully choose to continue in the lifestyle of the old creation with no regard to their salvation, are foolish.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly. Honor is not befitting for a fool. Their malice may be concealed by deception, but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Proverbs 26

The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Proverbs 27:12

If you continue to freely and willfully sin after being saved, you run the risk of falling away. If you continue to willfully rebel then you may place yourself in the position of God giving you over to your hardened heart. If you do not fall away, and if God doesn’t give you over to your hardened heart, you will still experience consequences.

Careful to not base your faith on “cheap grace”. Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonheoffer coined the phrase "cheap grace". Bonheoffer wrote that cheap grace is, “the grace we bestow on ourselves ... grace without discipleship." I highly recommend Bonheoffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings – challenges and corrects some common misrepresentations of the Reformation.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a short read but a hoot.

> If I’m saved, why not continue to sin? If it’s not required for salvation then why stop? It feels good to sin, let’s be real.

Good and valid questions. The questions are conditional “if/then” statements where the “ifs” are presumed to actually be the case so let’s unpack them.

> If I’m saved …

Saved: the sinner recognizes their sin, repents and is baptized renouncing the devil and his ways. The sinner turns from their worldly self and through the means of grace, enters a discipleship of sanctification.

Repentance: turning away from the self (trusting your own character and merits to please God) and turning towards God (trusting His character and Christ’s merits.)

Justification: now judged free from sin, the new person is justified by grace through faith; the righteousness of Jesus is accredited to the believer. The sinner is redeemed (literally “bought back”) from the dead.

Sanctification: spiritual growth that follows justification.

Discipleship: the new Christian submits to be a student/learner of a master.

> … then why not continue to sin?

Sin: a consequence of evil, man is conceived, born and exists in a state of hostility towards God. The fruits of sin are lawlessness and trespassing (overstepping divine law). The old self’s thoughts, words and deeds are continually sin; all sin is a violation against God.

A saved sinner is redeemed and a new creation in Christ. Redeemed sinners who freely and willfully choose to continue in the lifestyle of the old creation, having no regard to their salvation, are being foolish. Like a dog that returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly. Honor is not befitting for a fool. Their malice may be concealed by deception, but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Proverbs 26

The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Proverbs 27:12 If you continue to freely and willfully sin after being saved, you run the risk of falling away. If you continue to willfully rebel then you may place yourself in the position of God giving you over to your hardened heart. If you do not fall away, and if God doesn’t give you over to your hardened heart, you will still experience consequences.

tl;dr: What you’re doing is putting your faith on “cheap grace”. Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonheoffer coined the phrase "cheap grace". Bonheoffer wrote that cheap grace is, “the grace we bestow on ourselves ... grace without discipleship." I highly recommend Bonheoffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship

A Christian classic book is The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship"

The woman /u/MustBeTheMusic80 describes claimed to be a Christian but was more focused on earthly pursuits than serving God.

She knew about the Gospel but instead chose to serve mammon.

She is not the thief on the cross nor is she a late hire who submitted to the vineyard owner’s good grace to agree to work in the vineyard.

She’s one of the women who foolishly ignored trimming her lamp to wait for the bridegroom. Only when the bridegroom was coming did she want oil from the other wise women.

Only God knows her fate but again, just based on what OP wrote, I think she was desperately grasping at cheap grace.

Not a great plan.

The Reformation principle of sola scriptura is not “the Bible alone is the sole authority” aka Bible onlyism. “Bible onlyism” is the product of post-Enlightenment individualism – not the Reformation. Sola scriptura is not a right of private judgment or a license to come to one’s own conclusions on religious matters. That modern misconception misrepresents and trivializes the principle; that contemporary understanding seriously misconstrues what the Reformers unanimously taught.

Today many mistakenly just translate the Latin terms into English and then assume that’s the entire teaching or principle – it is not. An airplane pilot may fly solo (from Vulgar Latin sola) but they certainly do not do it alone with nothing else.

Note: The solas are not Protestant doctrine. Today Protestantism is a movement within Christianity, not a collective group having a central leadership structure and collectively agreed upon doctrines or beliefs.

Reformation Sola 101

There are three (3) traditional solas that came out of the Reformation: sola gratia, sola fide and sola scriptura. They are expressed as: we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone on the basis of scripture alone.

Sola gratia: is not “cheap grace” without discipleship and sacrifice. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer, drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, responded to the dichotomy of cheap vs costly grace. He writes “cheap grace” is the grace we bestow on ourselves … grace without discipleship. Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again … It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." The Cost of Discipleship

Sola Fide: is based on Romans 1:16-17. A common teaching of the Reformers was while justification is by faith alone, faith is never alone and faith that justifies cannot be solitary. They emphasized that Christian liberty does not live in idleness; it is where works begin. The modern misconception is: “faith alone and nothing else.” This solitary faith misrepresents and trivializes sole fide. This contemporary teaching seriously misconstrues what the Reformers unanimously taught. Justification sola fide has nothing to do with a call to such solitary faith. This is one of the most glaring and striking ways of getting the Reformation wrong.

Sola Scriptura

1. The principle of sola scriptura acknowledges God is Sovereign and the highest ultimate authority.

2. As such, sola scriptura acknowledges God’s Word is inspired and sufficient to discern, teach and set doctrines.

3. You have to remember, in the socio-cultural historical context of the Reformation, the Reformers felt the need to coin theological principles in layman’s terms. So the solas are theological shorthand, an adage or a slogan if you will, that would be a useful mnemonic to teach the layman how one is saved.

4. Sola scriptura is a principle, a handy tool one can use to discern and set doctrines.

5. Sola scriptura allows for secondary authorities and even allows for revelation when they are “normed” (think supported) by scripture.

For example:

A. Ecumenical Creeds: the Reformers upheld the importance of the early creeds and ecumenical councils, not to mention many of the writings of individual church fathers, as secondary authorities that helped to regulate the right interpretation of Scripture even as they were subject to scripture’s own regulation.

B. Trinity: the Latin term is not in the bible, yet Lutherans believe and confess the Trinity.

Why? Because it is normed by scripture.

B. Creeds: the ecumenical creeds are not in the bible yet Lutherans believe and confess them. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) is a denomination that confesses the historic, orthodox Christian faith, a faith built on “the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20).

Why? Because they’re normed by scripture.

C. God’s Omni attributes: the Latin omni terms are not in the bible, yet Lutherans believe and confess God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.

Why? Because they’re normed by scripture.

Q: What’s the scriptural basis for sola scriptura?

1. God is Sovereign, the ultimate authority.

2. In the advent of Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, the apostles equated the Holy Spirit to the later notion of the vicar of Christ. Jesus told them “if I do not go away, the parakletos (advocate, intercessor, coloer, comforter, helper) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). Latin vicarius is “proxy", noun use of adjective vicarius "substituted, delegated," from vicis "change, interchange, succession; a place, position" (from PIE root weik- (2) "to bend, to wind").

3. Jesus breathed on them and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. This was realized as a “violent rushing wind” out of heaven at Pentecost replete with tongues of fire and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 The typology of the pillar of fire that led the Israelites out of Egypt would not be lost on the 12 Jewish apostles. At Pentecost Peter could now give a sermon in which he referenced the prophet Joel and Elohim’s Spirit being poured out on all people.

4. In the advent of the death of the apostles, today we are left with scripture – the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is scripture’s authority.

5. Scripture, the Old and New Testament, comes from God to man with divine authority. Christianity believes and confesses that the Holy Spirit inspired the bible. We understand the books of the Bible were written over centuries by many authors and we understand the Bible’s authors didn’t have divine attributes and grammar (aka omniscience.) We believe that God spoke divine truths through men of human capacities, and since this inspiration was not a mechanical dictation, the scriptures in many ways bear the marks of their human authorship.

Don’t mistake what’s in the Bible for what the Bible is trying to teach you.

6. Jesus and the apostles appealed ad nauseam to authoritative Hebrew Scriptures to support their teachings. The phrase “It is written …” occurs over 70 times in the New Testament.

7. Case in point: this is how Martin Luther could relatively easily discern that the Church’s abusive means of selling indulgences, including lies from priests and the papacy about their efficacy, wasn’t doctrinal. The Role of Indulgences in the Building of New Saint Peter’s Basilica

8. Luther was ordered to the Diet of Worms and was asked to recant his 95 Theses. As his original intent was debate and discussion, Luther asked them to show his error with scripture. Luther is quoted as saying, “Should I thus be persuaded, I am most ready and willing to revoke all errors and be the first to throw my books into the fire … Unless I am convicted by the testimony of Scripture or by evident reason … I cannot and will not recant, since it is difficult, unprofitable and dangerous indeed to do anything against one’s conscience.”

9. Note here that Luther was ready and willing to revoke any errors based on scripture or by evident reason. Also note that the Diet of Worms was in 1521 (over a decade before Luther’s Bible) and Luther was entirely willing to defer to the Roman Catholic Canon of scripture and evident Catholic reasoning. Luther’s Bible with Apocrypha was completed much later in 1534. In fact none of the major Bible translations that emerged during the Reformation produced a Bible of simply 66 books.

10. This is strong evidence that for the Reformers, the doctrine of sola scriptura is not Bible onlyism (the bible and nothing else.)

The heart of sola scriptura is to support (or “norm”) preaching/teaching/doctrine with scripture. I highly recommend the book Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings by James R. Payton Jr.

> That's the kind of grace I look for when I think of the Church.

Sure, grace that serves you; not discipleship (a response to grace that serves God.) Discipleship is hard, so just to stick to “cheap grace” that absolves without any cost to you.

You posted a lot of criticisms about “the Church” and it’s response to COVID. You called it a “metaphorical shrug of the shoulders”. You said, “So many lives have been lost, and those who remain are grappling with the emptiness of their loss. We cry out to God because of their loss and our own suffering. Lord, why did you bring this curse on us"? At least, this is what I feel and pray when I think about this.

Well, God heard your prayer and God sends us. We’re “the Church”.

I mean you can wag your finger at God all you want but when the disciples pointed out to Jesus that the large crowd was hungry what did Jesus tell them? “Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Matthew 14:13-16

The teaching was faith + action = multiplication, blessings.

Paul admonished the Galatians that Christ has set us free but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14

I highly recommend The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Bonheoffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship”

If you want the Church to act; then act. You are the Church.

“Why would I repent I’m gonna keep sinning and god will just forgive me”

That’s what Lutherans call “cheap grace”. I highly recommend the book The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonheoffer. He unpacks the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." Bonheoffer explains that cheap grace "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship.

The answer to “Why even try?” is because Jesus wanted the apostles to build his ekklesia (the assembly/whole body of believers “called out” from the world to congregate) to be in the world but not of the world.

Obviously believers will fail but that’s not the point. The point is what we do afterwards. When we fail we don’t shrug, say we’re sorry and continue to conform to the world. We repent (change one's mind or purpose); are sorry and think or act differently afterwards as opposed to someone who’s just sorry.

The Greek translated as repent is metanoeo; meta (with, among, after) + noieo (think differently after) means a change afterward. Every human can be sorry but Christians have Godly sorrow; we are to be sorry and also think/act differently. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10.

The Italian pentimento is from the verb pentirsi meaning to repent. The concept is that say an artist paints an arm a certain position, then changes their mind, then they go another direction to change the arm in another position. We can see the pentimento in a painting. The painter was meta (in the sense that he is numbered with/among artists) but he was different (metanoeo) in that he wasn’t just sorry he made the mistake and continued on; he thought differently than common artists and thought/acted differently to correct the error. It made them a better artist and the correction made the work more appealing to others.

Q: I’m saved by faith not works. So why should I think/act differently?

A: For you (your sanctification) and for others to see. Every tree is known by it’s own fruit. God doesn’t need our good works nor does He need evidence of your faith (God is a God who knows and He intimately knows hearts.) Repenting changes a person and that is good for the one repenting. Thinking and acting differently, along with doing good, is the fruit of one who is saved. It makes me a better person and serves as evidence (fruit) for others so that they be drawn to the Gospel.

If it’s just one, then it’s The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Honorable mentions:

Two from CS Lewis: The Screwtape Letters is a short read but a hoot, and Mere Christianity is a Christian Standard.

God's Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible--A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal

God’s Secretaries: the Making of the King James Bible

The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ.

The First Hundred Years AD 1-100: Failures and Successes of Christianity's Beginning is a good entry level, readable historical treatment of the Jesus Movement in First Century context to include the Jewish fight against despotic Roman rule and the violent separation of Christianity from Judaism.

Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings – challenges and corrects some common misrepresentations of the Reformation.

A great place to start reading about being a disciple of Jesus would be Dietrich Bonhoeffer's work; start with The Cost of Discipleship.