Fresh Book, Fresh Understanding

This past Sunday I quoted from a book that I have been reading by Timothy Keller called, 'The Prodigal God'. Although there are few books that I would consider must reads, this one fits in that category. Having just studied and preached my way through Jesus' parables of 'lostness' in Luke 15, the content of the book immediately captured my attention. What surprised me however, is that rather than focus simply on the lost coin, lost sheep or lost  younger brother, Keller focuses his attention almost completely on the elder brother, whom is portrayed as just as lost. This makes sense when we realize that in the parable of the prodigal son, the audience is comprised not of younger brothers, but actually of older brothers (aka the Pharisees or religious teachers).  I was also immediately surprised to find out that in spite of all of my research, I had never realized that the word, 'prodigal' does not mean wayward but rather, 'recklessly extravagant', and 'having spent everything'. Since that is true, prodigal then describes the father in the story of the parable as much or more than it describes the son. Truthfully, I have always thought of the elder son as an aside, but a closer look at the parable reveals that truly, the reaction and emotions of the elder son are in fact one of the keys to the whole story. If this peaks your interest, you've got to check it out! Since it is difficult to find books on the gospel, and particularly how the gospel works and continues to work in the lives of people, I couldn't recommend this one more. It is only 133 shorts pages of easy reading and Keller's style is extremely likeable. Put this on your short list of books to get in the next month. It's available at Chapters, or you could order it online here.