I first heard Timothy Keller speak at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit in August. His depiction of the story Jesus told, most commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son, was vivid and striking.
He presented view on the purpose of the parable that, once heard, is very obvious in the passage. Once the culture is understood and the context of the story presented, it becomes obvious this story was much more about the older brother than the younger one.
Prodigal: recklessly extravagant, having spent everything. The word is not about wrong living but about not holding back. People have used it to describe the younger son because of his extravagant living, squandering his inheritance. Keller uses it to describe God and His extravagant giving, holding nothing back in Jesus to bring us to Himself.
The context for the story is the Pharisees criticizing Jesus for hanging out with ‘sinners’. His story shows that both brothers were lost in their own way – the younger by rejecting the father and pursuing self-discovery and the older by upholding the moral code without fault and seeing the father as ‘owing him’ because of compliance.
The book is short and can be read in a day. It is well laid out and presents a wonderful picture of what the good news Jesus brought really is. I would recommend it without reservation.
