The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship

An important book for serious Christians to work through.

Bill Hull and Brandon Cook point to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s path, which is the journey away from cheap grace and toward costly discipleship. This is an important book for serious Christians to work through. It grapples with the fundamental issue of what it really means to place our faith in Christ and follow him. I recommend the content of this book for serious reflection.

The Cost of Cheap Grace is refreshing for those who long to learn about Jesus’ life and teaching about discipleship (which is so rarely reaffirmed) and rebuking for those who have wandered into a self-defined, alternate version of discipleship. Bill Hull and Brandon Cook clearly remind us of the calling Jesus set before us and help us juxtapose it against contemporary teaching that has invaded our theology and churches. I anticipate that after our dozens of house-church pastors and network of churches in the Church Project read The Cost of Cheap Grace, our decisions to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus will radically increase.

Briskly written, theologically rich, and always engaging, The Cost of Cheap Grace uncovers the roots of the nominalism that undermines the church’s witness to the world. Brandon and Bill offer biblical, practical, and challenging pathways to transform your disciple making. This enjoyable book will supercharge you and your church!

The popular understanding of grace has been a costly deception, causing many to buy a cheap imitation of God’s original. Hull and Cook joyfully invite us into grace’s ability to fully transform us through true discipleship. This is a potent read for every follower of Jesus who longs for a life of ever-deepening union with God.

Like a clap of lightning splitting the darkness or the sound of a muffled drone, The Cost of Cheap Grace is a jolt to a nation of us struggling to focus on the singular work of discipleship. Bill Hull and Brandon Cook begin upstream at the source, where we’re encouraged to rethink our conception of Jesus’ gospel so we might better imagine the makeup of a disciple of Jesus. After guiding us through a litany of factors contributing to our lethargy toward discipleship—cultural and theological, historical and philosophical—they put us on the line. Will we stand up and start walking?

Bill and Brandon challenge the theology and church culture that have created a chasm among followers of Jesus. They aren’t, however, simply doom-and-gloom prophets, but rather they point us toward a better way forward with thoughtful insights and practical advice. The introduction alone is worth the price of the book and will make you yearn for a better way forward for the church.

This book was refreshing, life-giving, freeing, and deeply meaningful to my walk with God and to my pastorate. I was encouraged and challenged, and I received great hope to step into the responsibility of sounding the clarion call: Following Jesus begins and ends with grace, but the middle is filled with a path paved by our willingness to obey Jesus’ words and emulate his life through the power of the Holy Spirit.