We’re studying the parable of the prodigal son. We read that the younger brother comes to the father and says, “Give me my slice of the inheritance.” He says basically, “Even though you’re not dead, I want your things, but I don’t want you. I don’t want …
Read More
The purpose of the prodigal son was to blow out the existing paradigms, the existing categories, human beings had for their understanding of their relationship with God. Some people have what you might call a moralistic view of life. The moralistic view …
Read More
Now Jesus seems to be continually arguing when we read the accounts of his life in the Bible. Why does he do so? Because Jesus would speak to people, but when people listened to him, they would take his words, they would take the sayings, and they would …
Read More
In the very beginning of Luke chapter 15, Jesus speaks to religious leaders — teachers of the law — who look at Jesus fraternizing with “sinners,” and they say to him basically, “Why are you hanging out with all these lost people?” The people who are spi…
Read More
The twentieth century philosopher Martin Heidegger believed all human beings were characterized by unheimlichkeit, which means homesickness. It means to be alienated, to feel that we’re not really home in this world, to feel that we are in exile, that we…
Read More
The one thing everybody knows when you read the parable of the prodigal son is it’s about forgiveness. The parable is a beautiful picture of a father that forgives his son and welcomes him home.
Let’s take a look first at what it teaches us about forgiv…
This great parable of the prodigal son teaches us many insights as to how the grace of God affects our relationships with each other, how it creates a unique community, a unique human society. Today we’re focusing on the theme of sonship. What did sonshi…
Read More
We’re looking at the parables of Luke 15. Of course, the biggest, longest, and most famous of them is the parable of the prodigal son. We see how the grace of God not only changes my individual life or your individual life, but how the grace of God creat…
Read More
In Luke 15, we’re learning how the gospel creates a special kind of community, and how it creates a new kind of community. We’re looking at the last of the three parables: the parable of the lost son. It’s the most famous. And it’s the longest.
I’d like …
The Parable of the Lost Sheep reveals that just as sheep are, by nature, unable to avoid straying from their shepherd, so humans, because of our sinful nature, are totally lost and in need of rescue by Jesus, our good shepherd. But in rescuing us from ou…
Read More