Sometimes You're In Great Need Because of Bad Choices AND Because Life is Unpredictable

There's a line in the story of the Prodigal Son that I don't think I'd ever noticed before. And it really does change how I hear and feel about this Parable.

NOTICING FRESH INSIGHTS IN THE BIBLE

The author of Hebrews talks about the logos of theos (the word of God) being alive and powerful.

Even though he wasn’t talking about the Bible per se, when he chose logos of theos he did seem to mean what you could call, “the manifestations of the mind or the intent of the Divine.”

As I understand it, this was the author’s way of trying to articulate that when God speaks (specifically through the lives and witness and testimony of humans), such events are dynamic. They live on. The move and have shape.

Or, you might say (as the United Church of Christ does), that God is a still-speaking God. In contrast to other (more conservative) Christian denominations that see the Bible as a static, closed, once-for-all declaration of theological truths.

Allll that to say, I often have the above in mind when I am (not surprisingly) surprised by reading or hearing something in the Bible—that I’ve read/heard many times—as though it were the first.

This could be because of details that I’d not noticed.

It could be because of a particular translation choice, or because I went to the original language and noticed something new.

It could be because every time you come to the Text you come as a different version of you, so things land differently as a result.

This happened to me recently as I was writing a sermon and using Jesus’ parable of the Lost Son (aka, the Prodigal Son) as my central text.

The prodigal son among the pigs — Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Like you, I’ve heard the story of the Prodigal Son many times, but there were a few things that leapt out at me the other day that opened the story even deeper. That illuminated Truth even brighter. That pointed to who God is, and who we are, in ways I hadn’t previously been attuned to.

Here’s the first thing. It’s a line in the story that I’d never noticed before. But it really does impact the story Jesus told in quite a significant way.