Conversation Points for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?

Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• In Luke 14:1, Jesus was going to eat with a leader of the Pharisees. Now, those leaders were grumbling because tax collectors and sinners were also coming to Jesus. “Sinners” would include both those who broke moral laws and those who did not keep the ritual purity the Pharisees kept, thus eating with such people would make one “unclean.”
• “Grumbling” or “murmuring” in v. 2 is dia-gongyzo in the Greek. The sound of the word suggests the meaning. It is related to the Hebrew word used in Exodus 16:7-12, when the Israelites murmured against Moses because they were in the wilderness without any food.
• This parable is often called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Culpepper remarks that such title only focuses on half the story. He titles it “The Prodigal Son, the Waiting Father, and the Elder Brother.” How do the different titles change how you might read the parable?
• The siblings are introduced as “sons” rather than “brothers.” The focus being on their relationship to the father rather than their relationship to each other.
• By asking the father for his share of the inheritance, the younger son is treating his father as if he was already dead. It would be both disrespectful and irregular. It would also permanently cut him off from any further resources from his father. Inheritance laws essentially mean the father would be giving away everything by making this move, because what didn’t go to the younger son was then entitled to the older son.
• The younger son becomes beholden to a Gentile who then orders him to tend swine. This is doubly sinful, being beholden to someone not from Israel, and then associating with swine, which were an abomination in first century Jewish culture.
• The younger son then “came to himself” and made plans to return to his father. In doing so, he followed the guidance of the prophets of Israel who spoke of repentance as returning.
• The father ran to meet his son returning. In ancient Palestine, it would have been unbecoming, undignified, for a grown man to run. The father publicly receives his younger son back, giving him a robe, a ring, and sandals, and killing the fatten calf. Meat was not a part of the daily diet, so this is a show of real lavishness.
• Verse 25 the story shifts to the elder son. When he heard the celebration and that his brother has returned; he refused to enter the house. This signifies the separation. Once again, the father left the house in search of a wayward son.
• The elder son never addressed his father as “father,” but the father began his response with “son,” thus cementing the familial relationship yet again.

Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.