Tim Keller. The Prodigal God. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.

It used to be that everyone knew the story about the Prodigal Son from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Luke. Now not so much.

I recall tutoring a student for the SAT around 1990 and I mentioned something about the story. She had never heard of it. I was thinking that just twenty years before, even the Jewish kids from my school had at least known something about that story. It was part of our culture.

Tim Keller reintroduces this story to us. But let me say that even long-time Christians who can quote the story word for word from the Greek Bible will get something from this little book. It is great.

First of all, Tim Keller writes very well. We get a sense of the heart of God from the way he presents the story Jesus tells. Keller does call it a parable, and it may be, but neither Jesus nor Luke specifically call it a parable. Indeed, Jesus begins by saying simply, “There was a man who had two sons.” (Luke 15:11) It sounds like this could be a true story. I certainly am not going to be dogmatic about it, but it is a thought.

The Prodigal God tells the story from the father’s point of view. That in itself is humbling because we understand that the Father represents God Himself. Years ago I read Daring to Draw Near, a book I still recall well. That was a look at Job from God’s perspective. I had to read a lot of it on my knees. When we see things from God’s perspective, most of the time we just have to shut up. (See Job 42:3)

There is a lot to the story of the Prodigal Son, but Keller notes that neither son had a right relationship with his father.

The younger son, the prodigal, does not respect his father. By asking for his inheritance before his father has died, the son is basically saying, “I wish you were dead.” Why? Because Daddy’s rules keep him from having fun. So he goes off to “far country” and prodigally spends his money till he has nothing left. He “comes to his senses” and repents. (Keller reminds us that prodigal means “spendthrift”).

Now, he knows that he has been sinning, and the sinful lifestyle has led to emptiness. He not only is remorseful, though, he recalls that his father loves people enough that he would take him back even as a servant. He returns.

Keller points out a lot of things that are culturally significant which I will not go into here, but we read that the father runs out to meet his returning son. So God is reaching out to the repentant one.

Of course, there is also the older brother. He is a typical older brother in that he tries to please his father. But he also does not really respect him. Not only does he criticize his father for taking the younger brother back, but then he complains that he has worked hard and yet his father never even gave him a kid to roast let alone the fatted calf he barbecued for the returning prodigal.

If the younger son were a wastrel and obvious sinner to anyone, the older son’s problem is self-righteousness. He thinks he deserves his fathers’ inheritance because he has been a good boy, a dutiful son. He also sees his father in terms of what he can get from him. The main difference is that he is willing to wait and is unwilling to share.

Notice, though, that the father goes out to the older son, too. God is reaching out to all of us. The question is whether we answer Him.

According to Jewish Law, the eldest son gets twice the inheritance of any other heir. (See Deuteronomy 21:17) Since the younger son already received his share, when the father says, “All that is mine is yours,” (Luke 15:31) that is precisely true according to the Law. Not only does that mean that the older son could have had a kid or a calf at any time, but it also means that the older son had to accept the fact that his father was giving up a calf and a ring to the younger one that otherwise may have become his own since now everything would be going to him.

I am reminded that the enemies who conspired to kill Jesus were mostly self-righteous. They did not believe that they were sinners. They were skeptical that Jesus was the Messiah. Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus, but Judas was not restored because he remained angry at Jesus because Jesus was not doing things the way he thought they should have been done. He was like the older son. He was angry at God. Peter knew he had denied his friend and wept. Jesus was able to restore him.

There is a lot more, but this book is anointed. Although it is a small book, there were times I had to stop reading just to think and pray about what Keller and the Bible were saying. Our relationship with God comes first. We do not have to prove ourselves. Nor should we be prodigally sinning. “We are the righteousness of God in Christ.” (See II Corinthians 5:21 KJV)

We are joint heirs with our older brother, Jesus. (Romans 8:17 KJV) But let’s face it, half of infinity is still a pretty big number.