Their emphasis on discipleship threatened to turn the life of the state and its Catholic and Protestant church partners upside down. It is nothing more nor less than the outward application of the Christian's inner experience of God's New Creation in Christ. Right belief and right living are two sides of the same coin. They cannot be separated. Grebel and his partners in the gospel contended that the only way to really know Jesus is to follow Jesus.
True repentance is evidenced by newness of behavior.
The disciple's whole life is to be brought literally under the lordship of Christ. That this vision of the church as discipleship made a difference, even their enemies had to admit. Even those who are inclined to be critical will say that their lives are excellent. The world took notice and agreed. God's New Creation in Christ was so highly visible and disturbing as a church that Catholic and Protestant alike decided it had to be destroyed.