Over the last past two years, I’ve read three books on the third parable in Luke 15, often called the “Prodigal Son.” While the works I list below have been helpful to my understanding, my interest in this parable was actually awakened my sophomore year in college as Dr. Preston Mayes was teaching through the Luke’s Gospel. While I am sure that I heard it preached this way before, for the first time in my life it came through my thick skull that the parable is more directed toward the older brother and people like him than it was toward with the younger brother at all (see Luke 15:1-3; 25-31, noting the abrupt and seemingly unresolved conclusion).
Sunday, I paused our church’s paragraph by paragraph journey through John’s Gospel in order to look at The Lost Sons from Luke 15. If you are interested, you can listen or download here.
I’d recommend reading these three books* with discernment; they each present some very helpful content.
- The Tale of Two Sons, by John MacArthur
- The Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes by Kenneth Bailey
- Prodigal God by Tim Keller
*Please understand that in pointing the reader to these resources, I am simply pointing out that there is valuable information to be gleaned. This is obviously not an endorsement of the entire corpus or theology of these men.
seeing clearly 