In Luke 15, Jesus presents 3 pictures of reconciliation. Chapter 15 is actually one parable told three different ways. Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep. He adds to that the story of the lost coin. He finishes it off with the story of the lost son. The three stories are actually one parable.  The parable was spoken because of these words uttered by the religious leaders who opposed Jesus, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” The Pharisees and scribes were taking Jesus to task over His pursuit of sinners. With that in mind, let us take a look at the prodigal son.

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Luke 15:1–3 (ESV)
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable:

What Does the Word ‘Prodigal’ Mean?

• QUESTION: What do you think the word ‘prodigal’ means?
  Do you think prodigal means someone who was ‘lost’ and then came home?

• The word does not mean this at all.

DEFINITION: prodigal – means “recklessly wasteful” or “a recklessly wasteful extravagant consumer.”

• Understand that the translators of the different versions of the Bible in existence today, like the KJV, the ESV, the Amplified, the NLT etc. put descriptive headings at the front of these stories as markers to indicate where a story begins and where the previous story or section ends. These markers are not in the original Greek text.
• Luke did not write them.
• Translators, by scripting the heading such, wish us to focus on this son as the story of a recklessly wasteful son.
• But, is this story really about this son’s excessive spending habits?
• Do you see that men, who wrote these headings, from a good and sincere motive, want us to look at the money he blew?
• Is that really what this story is about, money?
• No, the story is not about the money.
• In fact, the story is not really about a son who left home.
• Going further, the story is not about the elder son either.
• The story is about the attitude of the father towards both of his sons!
• It is the Father you should hone in on in this story not the son!
• The Father is mentioned 12 times in this parable.
• You see the Father interacting with the younger son and then the story cuts away and you see the Father interacting with the older son.
• How can we prove that, just by the number of times the Father is mentioned?
• No, go back to Luke 15:2 and reread it.
• And, remember Jesus told these stories because he was taken to task over receiving sinners.
• So, what Jesus is trying to show us is that the Father God receives sinners.
• In fact, this story shows that He runs with open arms to them once they return.
• The story is about a father reconciling and forgiving his son.
• The star of the show here is the Father who forgave.
• The name of this parable should be absolutely changed from the Prodigal Son to the Reconciling or Forgiving Father.

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Have You Looked at the Father in this Parable?

Luke 15:11–12 (ESV)
11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them.

• The younger son commits a terrible transgression by making this request of his father.

QUESTION: Where is the offence that needs to be forgiven?

• What is the scripture referring to when talking about the ‘share of property’?
• You must set this in its Jewish 1st century context.
• The younger son asking for his share of property is not just about who gets the dishes in the inheritance, who gets the chair, who gets the clothes etc.
• What it is mostly about is who gets the land.
• The land was the single most important possession of an Israelite.
• Why?
• Land was part of the covenant.

Genesis 17:1–2,8 (ESV)
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”
8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

• All of the following verses speak of the land and Israel inheriting it.
• Gen 13:15; 15:7, 18; 17:8; 22:17; 26:3; 28:4, 13; 35:12; 48:4; 50:24; Exod 3:8; 6:4–8; 13:5; 32:13; 33:1; Num 10:29; 14:23; 32:11; Deut 6:18, 23; 8:1; 9:5, 28; 10:11; 11:8–9, 21; 26:3, 15; 28:11; 31:7, 20; 34:4; Josh 1:6; 5:6; Judg 2:1.¹
• Land was everything to an Israelite.
• To this very day land it is an important cultural issue in that region of the world.
• The younger son said to his father, “I want what’s most important; I want what’s most valuable; and I want it now.”
• The fact that the son wanted the inheritance is critical.
• The land was only supposed to pass to the sons as an inheritance upon the death of the father.
• What is this son really communicating to his father?
• He is really communicating these words.
• “Dad, I really wish you were dead already.” ²
• “Since you are taking your time dying, how about handing over the money now.”
• This request would have set that Israelite village that they lived in on fire.
• This would have been gossip worthy news.
• The Jerusalem Times would have had field day with this story.
• The son exposed his father to public humiliation with this request.
• It was shocking for a son, in the climate of the 1st century, to make this request.
• This is a disgraceful request; full of disrespect; and highly irregular in that culture.
• Understanding this background sheds a little different light on this younger son.
• This is not just a son who kind of just loses his way and comes back home in some romantic kind of ending.
• This is how we have looked at this story.
• No, this is a son who is acting like a complete and total jerk!
• But, notice the reaction of the father.
• His response is so smooth, you almost miss it.
• He swallows the offense without saying a word.
• Missing the response is one reason people have centered up on the son in this story instead of the father.
• He grants the request without objection to the violation of his honor.
• It’s utterly magnanimous.
• There is such a mystery about the Father God.
• He sits on His Throne, a place everyone wants to go when they get to heaven, but when you get there, you cannot see His face.
• It is shrouded and covered.
• You cannot look upon His face and live.
• At the same time, there is so much power that emanates from His being that you can only get spatially so close to Him.
• It seems as if there is almost this barrier because of the characteristics of His person.
• The scriptures says that Jesus came to reveal Him to us.

Luke 10:22 (ESV)
22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

• Jesus is revealing things about His Father in this story.
• This story shows aspects of who God the Father is so we can get past the barrier.
• So, despite the contempt shown by the son, the father grants his younger sons request.
• If there were two sons, the oldest son would receive 2/3rd’s of the inheritance. The youngest would receive 1/3rd.
• So far, what do you see here?
• Don’t you see the descriptor of God in Ex. 34:6-7 in this story?
• Doesn’t this parable show the gracious side of the Father?

Exodus 34:6–7 (ESV)
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Luke 15:13 (ESV)
13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.

• What further exasperates the situation is that this son took the inheritance and went to a far country.
• What is a far country?
• It is where the Gentiles live.
• This had to be so. No Jewish person would own a pig farm.
• This son took the inheritance and squandered it into the hands of Gentiles.
• What is the end result now of this son’s actions?
• He has humiliated his father.
• He has brought disrespect to the family name.
• The family cannot recoup this land in the year of Jubilee because those laws are not pertinent to Gentiles.
• This father has every reason to excommunicate or cut this son off.
• Jews would disinherit a person who acted like this in a ceremony called ‘The Gesasah’.
• The Gesasah was a ceremony by townspeople for a son of the village who had either lost his money to Gentiles or married an immoral woman. They would gather around him, breaking jars with corn and nuts, and declare that he was to be cut off from the village. ³
• But what does the father do instead of excommunicating his son?

Luke 15:20–21 (ESV)
20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

• The scripture states, ‘While he was a long way off…’
• How could the father have seen his son from such a long way off?
• The father was looking for his son.
• Remember the first two stories, the man looking for the sheep, the woman looked for the coin. The father looked for this boy.
• Could it be that the father left his house and situated himself at such a vantage point where he could see way down the road?
• The father was not angry. He was looking.
• He was not upset. He was searching.
• He was not mad. He was longing.
• He hurt for his son.
• Notice as soon as He saw him, He felt something.
• He felt compassion.
• The offense that the son committed is not what came up to Him when He saw His son.
• You know that happens many times.
• When a person has done you wrong and you see them, you also have a tendency to see the offense, the injustice at the same time.
• Not so, this father.

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Luke 15:22 (ESV)
22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.

• What was the ring about?
• The ring was used to seal important documents and conduct business transactions.
• The ring, the signet ring, symbolized authority.
• This father forgave his son and immediately gave him authority!
• Now, we are looking at this story in its first century context.
• But since the Father here is symbolic of God the Father and we know that He never changes, if we upload the robe, the ring and the shoes into the New Covenant what do we have?
• We have a robe which represents righteousness or right standing.
• Right standing implies total forgiveness and total cleansing of all sin.
• We have a ring which symbolizes that we have authority on planet earth.
• And finally, we have shoes which in Ephesians 6 denotes the preparation of the gospel of peace.
• Looking at the shoes further we see the added indication of trust.
• The Father God not only forgave us but He entrusted us with the most important message on the planet.
• And, He did it right after He forgave us.
• No waiting period is necessary for a reconciled son to begin to share what Jesus did in their life.
• Many times in human relations, forgiveness comes at the expense of trust.
• Someone abused you, and, yes, you forgave them but trust comes much slower.
• Not with your Father in heaven.
• He trusted you, and empowered you immediately after you received His forgiveness.

 Call to Action:

Never doubt God’s love for you. If there is any hint of doubt in your mind, meditate on this story. See the Father God looking, searching, and waiting for you. This is Him. This is how He feels about you. No earthly father loves his children more than God the Heavenly Father loves you. Soak in that thought until it becomes real to your heart.

Episode Resources

You can find more information see the following posts by clicking on the links.

1. What the Prodigal Son Teaches Us

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Question: How has God’s love impacted your life? Do you have a particular example of how He demonstrated His love for you in a tangible way? If you do, would you please leave it in the comments section below?

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