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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Let's Not Call Him the 'Prodigal' Son Anymore, Okay?

Can we just stop calling him the 'Prodigal Son'?

First of all - most of the people I've met and worked with don't even know what the word means.  They have heard it most of their lives and have assumed that it means something like 'runaway'.  But it doesn't.  It means wastefully or recklessly extravagant - which is an accurate description of the younger son in Jesus' parable (Luke 15: 11 - 32)...

but

to call him the 'Prodigal  Son' breaks up the triplet of Jesus' parables recorded by Luke.  In chapter 15, as Jesus is speaking to both the "tax collectors and sinners" who are gathered around to hear him and to the muttering "Pharisees and the teacher of the law," Jesus tells three related parables:

The Parable of the Lost Sheep (15: 3 - 7)
The Parable of the Lost Coin (15: 8 - 10)
and the Parable of the Lost (not prodigal) Son (15: 11 - 32)

To call him the 'Prodigal Son' breaks up that series of connected stories, separates him from the sheep and the coin. Luke put them together that way on purpose - connected them with the word 'lost' because he intended us to interpret them together. 

So... can we agree to not call him the 'Prodigal Son' any longer?   

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Muted Hosannas Muted Hosannas
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