This is the story for our new series “Belong: We are God’s Family!” It is classically called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” but I personally title it, “The Parable of the Father’s Love for His Family.” It is the third of three parables given to us by Jesus with a searching theme—the Lost Sheep in 15:1-7, the Lost Coin in 15:8-10, and the Lost Son in 15:11-32.  When Emily Hurst and I were talking about this, she said, “I wonder if, for Jesus, it was like those moments a teacher has where they explain a concept one way, look out to a sea of blank faces, and dig deep to find another way to explain it until they begin to see the ‘lightbulb’ effect.” That is a great way to think about why a Master Teacher would use three parables in a row. That would make this one, the third of the three, very striking and important. Jesus sets up a pattern on purpose!

 

 

There are eight Sermon Bumpers for this series.  Each one is a reading of the story of the Prodigal Son, but by different members of our church.  The last one, “Read by the Family of God”, is a collage of all of them reading different parts.