The Prodigal - Wk 5

The Older Son

Luke 15:25–32 NRSV

25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

25-26

How does he not know what is going on?

27-28a

The cause for celebration makes him unhappy.

28b

The father goes out to him (like the younger son)

29-30

The older son defines the relationship with the father that he has been living in and the reasons why things are owed to him.

31-32

The father redefines the relationship with the older brother and the younger brother.

—> Are we connected or disconnected from the father?

—> Both sons at points in this story are disconnected from the heart of the father.

—> the younger son may be the only one who get’s reconnected in the end.

—> Works righteousness vs cheap grace

—> both amount to the same thing at the end of the day pride and idolatry of self

GENERAL NOTES

Themelios: Volume 27, No. 1, Autumn 2001 The Older Son—The Harvest of Liberalism

Third: The older son was suffering from a mixture of self-righteousness and self-pity (29). When pressed, he fell back in defence of his record of years of loyal service, his impeccable conduct towards his father, and his father’s failure to favour him in the way he was now doing towards a son who had broken all the rules and brought him nothing but pain and shame. From this reply, we can see into the heart of the older son, and come to the conclusion that through all his years of service he has related to his father on the basis of authority and law, not of love and liberty. He had the mind of a slave and not a son. He nurtured a grudge against his father, which he now articulates after all these years. He has been silently critical of his father while pretending to serve him and obey him. His service has been a matter of duty, never a joy.

Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament Chapter 15

29. Lo, so many years do I serve thee—So he was one of the instances mentioned ver. 7. How admirably therefore does this parable confirm that assertion! Yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends—Perhaps God does not usually give much joy to those who never felt the sorrows of repentance.