daddy4ms

Yesterday, I finished the book, Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller. I had been challenged and enjoyed the book from the very beginning as he explains that the Parable of the Prodigal Son is wrongly named. It should instead be the Parable of the Sons. He suggests that we have been taught to focus on the younger, more rebellious son, even though the older son also had issues to deal with too. The focus is not just on a God who forgives the wayward son, but the self-righteous son as well. Too often our churches are full of "older brothers" and miss out on the true meaning of the parable. It is not about "them" but about us and our need for Christ. I am an older brother as I have confessed before. The book continues to explain the parable in insightful and challenging ways. But Keller brings it home, in my opinion, in the last chapter. As I read, I was a "highlighting freak". I kept reading and saying, "wow! that is true, that is good, yes". B...

The title of this post is true for 2 reasons. First of all, I am the older brother to Abbie. Growing up as an older brother, I tried to protect, watch out for, and take care of my little sister. But, I often failed in this such as the time I raced her down the big hill which ended with her getting stitches. But I'm also the older brother in the parable of the two sons (or better know to many of us as the prodigal son in Luke 15). Recently, we had a sermon where the speaker admitted that he would have been a Pharisee if he was alive during Jesus' time. Even though, we would like to disagree with that, many of us would have to agree with him. So, as I was reading Tim Keller's book, The Prodigal God, this morning I was reminded how I am the older brother again. Keller challenges our understanding of what the point or message of this parable really is. Is it about a forgiving God? Yes, but Keller says it's more. The audience is the Pharisees so they would easily h...