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The Parable of Two Sons
Introduction: Last week I introduced the start of this series on Jesus’ parables as told in .
The third of Jesus’ three parables is the longest and most famous.
It is a story about
a family—a father, an older son, and a younger son.
Here is the cliff notes version of the story Jesus told: The story begins when the younger son comes to
the father and says, “Give me my share of the estate.”
In ancient times, when the father died, the
oldest son always got “a double portion” of what any other child got.
If there are two sons, the
older would get two-thirds of the estate and so the younger would get one-third.
So the story opens
with the younger son asking for his one-third share of the inheritance.
Today we’re going to look at:
1) the meaning of the request,
of the request, 2) the response to that request, and 3) what difference it makes for us.
2) the response to that request, and
3) what difference it makes for us.
The Meaning of the Request
1.
The meaning of the request—verses 11-12.
Let’s read the request in
Luke
The Meaning
• The younger son’s request was stunning, because the inheritance, of course, was not divided up
and distributed to the children until the father died.
• As Kenneth Bailey writes: “In Middle Eastern culture, to ask for the inheritance while the
Father is alive, is to wish him dead.”
• The request would therefore have been a disgrace to the family name, because of the
younger son’s extraordinary disrespect for his father.
It would have also been a blow to the
economic standing of the family, since the father would have to sell part of his estate in
order to give him his share.
• In short, this request ripped the family apart.
It was a relational and economic act of
violence against the family’s integrity.
• Why would the younger son make such a request?
• Saint Augustine gives us a theory of why we do what we do, and especially
why we sin.
He makes this startling observation: “A man has murdered another man—what
was his motive?
Either he desired his wife or his property or else he would steal to support
himself; or else he was afraid of losing something to him; or else, having been injured, he
was burning to be revenged.”
Augustine goes on to say that even a murderer, murders... because he loves something.
He loves romance or wealth or his reputation or something
because he loves something.
He loves romance or wealth or his reputation or something
else too much, inordinately, more than God, and that is why he murders.
Our hearts are distorted by “disordered loves.”
We love, rest our hearts in, and look to things to give us
distorted by “disordered loves.”
We love, rest our hearts in, and look to things to give us
the joy and meaning that only the Lord can give.
• The younger son may have lived with his father and may even have obeyed his father, but he
didn’t love his father.
The thing he loved, ultimately, was his father’s things, not his father.
His heart was set on the wealth and on the comfort, freedom and status that wealth brings.
His father was just a means to an end.
Now, however, his patience was over.
He knew that the request would be like a knife in his father’s heart, but he obviously didn’t care.
His heart was set on the wealth and on the comfort, freedom and status that wealth brings.
His father was just a means to an end.
Now, however, his patience was over.
He knew that
2 St. Augustine Confessions, trans.
by H.Chadwick, (Oxford, 1998), Book 2:5.
2 His father was just a means to an end.
Now, however, his patience was over.
He knew that
© 2009 by Timothy Keller.
You are permitted and encouraged to use this outline as the basis for your own preaching and teaching.
2
His father was just a means to an end.
Now, however, his patience was over.
He knew that
the request would be like a knife in his father’s heart, but he obviously didn’t care.
• Here is a great irony, which we will return to later in our series.
• The two sons look very different, on the surface.
One runs off and lives a dissolute life, one
stays home and obeys and serves his father.
• Yet at the end, the older son is furious with the father and humiliates him by refusing to go
into the great feast.
This is the older son’s way of saying that he will not live in the same
family with the younger son.
So again the family’s integrity and the father’s heart are under
assault—this time by the elder brother.
• Why?
The elder brother objects to the expense of what the father is doing, as we will see.
He shows that he has been obeying the father to get his things, and not because he loves
him, since he is willing to put him to shame.
Both the older and younger sons love the
father’s things, but not the father.
The Response to the Request
2. The response to the request—verse 12b, 20-24.
Let’s read the Father’s response to the son’s request:
Luke 15:12b,
The Response
• The younger’s son request to the father would have shocked Jesus’ listeners, but the father’s
response is even more remarkable.
This was a patriarchal society, in which you were required to
show deference and reverence toward those older or above you.
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