prodigal son

• illustrates how loving father can long wait for repentance of erring child

54:4.2Par­ents, those who have borne and reared chil­dren, are bet­ter able to un­der­stand why Mi­chael, a Cre­ator-fa­ther, might be slow to con­demn and de­stroy his own Sons. Je­sus’ story of the prodi­gal son well il­lus­trates how a lov­ing fa­ther can long wait for the re­pen­tance of an erring child.

• parable of

169:1.5“And now I would like to tell you the story of a thought­less son of a well-to-do farmer who de­lib­er­ately left his fa­ther’s house and went off into a for­eign land, where he fell into much tribu­la­tion. You re­call that the sheep strayed away with­out in­ten­tion, but this youth left his home with pre­med­i­ta­tion. It was like this:

169:1.6“A cer­tain man had two sons; one, the younger, was light­hearted and care­free, al­ways seek­ing for a good time and shirk­ing re­spon­si­bil­ity, while his older brother was se­ri­ous, sober, hard-work­ing, and will­ing to bear re­spon­si­bil­ity. Now these two broth­ers did not get along well to­gether; they were al­ways quar­rel­ing and bick­er­ing. The younger lad was cheer­ful and vi­va­cious, but in­do­lent and un­re­li­able; the older son was steady and in­dus­tri­ous, at the same time self-cen­tered, surly, and con­ceited. The younger son en­joyed play but shunned work; the older de­voted him­self to work but sel­dom played. This as­so­ci­a­tion be­came so dis­agree­able that the younger son came to his fa­ther and said: ‘Fa­ther, give me the third por­tion of your pos­ses­sions which would fall to me and al­low me to go out into the world to seek my own for­tune.’ And when the fa­ther heard this re­quest, know­ing how un­happy the young man was at home and with his older brother, he di­vided his prop­erty, giv­ing the youth his share.

169:1.7“Within a few weeks the young man gath­ered to­gether all his funds and set out upon a jour­ney to a far coun­try, and find­ing noth­ing prof­itable to do which was also plea­sur­able, he soon wasted all his in­her­i­tance in ri­otous liv­ing. And when he had spent all, there arose a pro­longed famine in that coun­try, and he found him­self in want. And so, when he suf­fered hunger and his dis­tress was great, he found em­ploy­ment with one of the cit­i­zens of that coun­try, who sent him into the fields to feed swine. And the young man would fain have filled him­self with the husks which the swine ate, but no one would give him any­thing.

169:1.8“One day, when he was very hun­gry, he came to him­self and said: ‘How many hired ser­vants of my fa­ther have bread enough and to spare while I per­ish with hunger, feed­ing swine off here in a for­eign coun­try! I will arise and go to my fa­ther, and I will say to him: Fa­ther, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no more wor­thy to be called your son; only be will­ing to make me one of your hired ser­vants.’ And when the young man had reached this de­ci­sion, he arose and started out for his fa­ther’s house.

169:1.9“Now this fa­ther had grieved much for his son; he had missed the cheer­ful, though thought­less, lad. This fa­ther loved this son and was al­ways on the look­out for his re­turn, so that on the day he ap­proached his home, even while he was yet afar off, the fa­ther saw him and, be­ing moved with lov­ing com­pas­sion, ran out to meet him, and with af­fec­tion­ate greet­ing he em­braced and kissed him. And af­ter they had thus met, the son looked up into his fa­ther’s tear­ful face and said: ‘Fa­ther, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no more wor­thy to be called a son’—but the lad did not find op­por­tu­nity to com­plete his con­fes­sion be­cause the over­joyed fa­ther said to the ser­vants who had by this time come run­ning up: ‘Bring quickly his best robe, the one I have saved, and put it on him and put the son’s ring on his hand and fetch san­dals for his feet.’

169:1.10“And then, af­ter the happy fa­ther had led the foot­sore and weary lad into the house, he called to his ser­vants: ‘Bring on the fat­ted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they all gath­ered about the fa­ther to re­joice with him over the restora­tion of his son.

169:1.11“About this time, while they were cel­e­brat­ing, the el­der son came in from his day’s work in the field, and as he drew near the house, he heard the mu­sic and the danc­ing. And when he came up to the back door, he called out one of the ser­vants and in­quired as to the mean­ing of all this fes­tiv­ity. And then said the ser­vant: ‘Your long-lost brother has come home, and your fa­ther has killed the fat­ted calf to re­joice over his son’s safe re­turn. Come in that you also may greet your brother and re­ceive him back into your fa­ther’s house.’

169:1.12“But when the older brother heard this, he was so hurt and an­gry he would not go into the house. When his fa­ther heard of his re­sent­ment of the wel­come of his younger brother, he went out to en­treat him. But the older son would not yield to his fa­ther’s per­sua­sion. He an­swered his fa­ther, say­ing: ‘Here these many years have I served you, never trans­gress­ing the least of your com­mands, and yet you never gave me even a kid that I might make merry with my friends. I have re­mained here to care for you all these years, and you never made re­joic­ing over my faith­ful ser­vice, but when this your son re­turns, hav­ing squan­dered your sub­stance with har­lots, you make haste to kill the fat­ted calf and make merry over him.’

169:1.13“Since this fa­ther truly loved both of his sons, he tried to rea­son with this older one: ‘But, my son, you have all the while been with me, and all this which I have is yours. You could have had a kid at any time you had made friends to share your mer­ri­ment. But it is only proper that you should now join with me in be­ing glad and merry be­cause of your brother’s re­turn. Think of it, my son, your brother was lost and is found; he has re­turned alive to us!’”

169:1.14This was one of the most touch­ing and ef­fec­tive of all the para­bles which Je­sus ever pre­sented to im­press upon his hear­ers the Fa­ther’s will­ing­ness to re­ceive all who seek en­trance into the king­dom of heaven.

169:1.15Je­sus was very par­tial to telling these three sto­ries at the same time. He pre­sented the story of the lost sheep to show that, when men un­in­ten­tion­ally stray away from the path of life, the Fa­ther is mind­ful of such lost ones and goes out, with his Sons, the true shep­herds of the flock, to seek the lost sheep. He then would re­cite the story of the coin lost in the house to il­lus­trate how thor­ough is the di­vine search­ing for all who are con­fused, con­founded, or oth­er­wise spir­i­tu­ally blinded by the ma­te­rial cares and ac­cu­mu­la­tions of life. And then he would launch forth into the telling of this para­ble of the lost son, the re­cep­tion of the re­turn­ing prodi­gal, to show how com­plete is the restora­tion of the lost son into his Fa­ther’s house and heart.

169:1.16Many, many times dur­ing his years of teach­ing, Je­sus told and re­told this story of the prodi­gal son. This para­ble and the story of the good Samar­i­tan were his fa­vorite means of teach­ing the love of the Fa­ther and the neigh­bor­li­ness of man.