Faith Time: Lessons of the Prodigal Son

MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — Faith Time is our weekly conversation on matters of faith.

Joining us this morning is Justin Driver with Forward Church. We want to talk about one of the most famous Bible stories, The Prodigal Son. What’s the basis of that story?

Guest: I love it so much. There’s so much theology packed into that, but also so much application for us packed into that story. I would say that the basis of it is God’s redemption in God’s love. The everlasting love of the father to pursue his children is the basic foundation of the prodigal.

Anchor: And we’ve got a story where you’ve got two sons, one decides to take his inheritance and kind of splurge it. The other one stays with the family and is sort of the good son and the the prodigal son comes back and he’s rewarded and he’s forgiven for his transgressions. What is this story meant to teach us?

Guest: So many different things, first and foremost, I love the part of the story where it says the father saw the son afar off. The prodigal started returning home, but the father went to him and ran to him, met him where he was, threw a celebration. So, I think that there’s all there’s always restoration, there’s always redemption, there’s always forgiveness, no matter how far we stray.

But then the flip side of that coin is the brother that you talked about that you know, is pious, so to speak, in his own self. But the father also goes to him in the story as well and encourages him to celebrate the return of his brother.

Anchor: Why shouldn’t we necessarily identify with the faithful brother who supposedly, you know, did everything right?

Guest: Well, I think, you know, there was a part in the story where he got jealous, Right. There was jealousy that that set up because he supposedly had done everything right, so to speak. But in his heart, he had bitterness and jealousy toward his brother. And that’s something that the Bible teaches us. Be careful not to allow bitterness and jealousy to set up in our heart.

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