The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Jesus used parables when teaching. Parables are earthly stories that have a heavenly meaning. In using parables, the Lord was able to teach a spiritual concept is such a way that even the most illiterate person would be able to understand. Therefore, the parables are filled with symbolism.
"The Parable of the Prodigal Son" is an earthly story that shows how pleased God is when a sinner repents and comes back to Him. The father of this parable represents God who is the Father of all mankind. This "certain man" provides for his two sons; however, the younger son, the prodigal, is impatient with the restraints placed upon him. He, therefore, wants his inheritance now to spend as he pleases, to be free from the household rule of his father. This prodigal son represents the sinner who wants to go his own way without being accountable to anyone even God.
This younger son "took his journey into a far country." In this journey he spent all that was given to him in a wasteful manner. This shows that a sinner is far from God and doing whatever he wants without any though to the consequences that might come.
After spending everything "there arose a mighty famine in the land." This famine symbolizes how worldly pleasures cannot satisfy the spirit. The prodigal was then thrown into degradation and the only means of earning a living was feeding pigs, which is the lowest job a Jew could perform.
Finally this young man remembers how well his father's servants are treated and fed. He decides to return to his father's house and beg forgiveness. Upon returning home, his father who has been waiting and watching for him welcomes him back with a great feast. The return of the prodigal shows that a sinner who comes to God in faith and repentance is welcomed back with love and mercy.
However, the older son who has faithfully remained home working for his father is upset by this generous welcome. He complains about the compassion shown to his brother and how none of this has ever been done for him.
While obtaining food seemed to be the entire purpose of life for the people imprisoned in the camps, it often killed more people than it saved. Though focusing on food seemed like a logical thing to do when you are being starved, it was not always very effective in helping people survive. There are many situations in the book illustrating how living for the sole purpose of acquiring food—under any condition—could turn out to be lethal.
A deeply pious man, John considers the Bible a sublime source of moral code, guiding him through the challenges of his life. He proclaims to his kid son, for whom he has written this spiritual memoir, that the “Body of Christ, broken for you. Blood of Christ, shed for you” (81). While John manages to stay strong in the faith and nurture a healthy relationship with his son, his relationship with his own father did not follow the same blueprint. John’s father, also named John Ames, was a preacher and had a powerful effect on John’s upbringing. When John was a child, Father was a man of faith. He executed his role of spiritual advisor and father to John for most of his upbringing, but a shift in perspective disrupted that short-lived harmony. Father was always a man who longed for equanimity and peace. This longing was displayed in his dealings with his other son, Edward: the Prodigal son of their family unit, a man who fell away from faith while at school in Germany. John always felt that he “was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house” (238). Father always watched over John, examining for any sign of heterodoxy. He argued with John as if John were Edward, as if he were trying to get Edward back into the community. Eventually, John’s father's faith begins to falter. He reads the scholarly books
In the book, “Manchild in the Promised Land,” Claude Brown makes an incredible transformation from a drug-dealing ringleader in one of the most impoverished places in America during the 1940’s and 1950’s to become a successful, educated young man entering law school. This transformation made him one of the very few in his family and in Harlem to get out of the street life. It is difficult to pin point the change in Claude Brown’s life that separated him from the others. No single event changed Brown’s life and made him choose a new path. It was a combination of influences such as environment, intelligence, family or lack of, and the influence of people and their actions. It is difficult to contrast him with other characters from the book because we only have the mental dialoged of Brown.
In The Parable of the Prodigal Son, there was a father with two sons. When the younger son matured, he asked for half of his father’s wealth, and he father complied. However, he went and squandered that wealth in a foreign land. After the man had depleted all his savings in irresponsible living, a famine struck his country, and he needed to find work. The son found dirty work, feeding pigs, and lived in poverty. He grew so hungry and wept because his father’s workers had food and not him. Then he cried out that he had sinned against his father and God. He believed he should not be considered his father’s son anymore. The son went looking for his father, and when his father saw him he was filled with compassion. He accepted his son with joy and provided him clothes and food and shelter. His father had rejoiced. He believed his son had died and been reborn
In the “Prodigal”, the boy whom the speaker is addressing to yearns to accomplish his own goals by leaving his hometown behind and entering the urbanized world that is filled with endless opportunities and possibilities, including “[becoming] an artist of the provocative gesture”, “wanting the world and return carrying it”, and “[reclaiming] Main Street in a limo.” However, despite all these ambitious opportunities the boy wishes to pursue, he is ultimately unable to alter the perception of others who are the most familiar with his character. Rather, the people who are the most acquainted with the boy will perceive him with the same view as in the past. The thought of a newly changed boy that embraced a completely different identity while accomplishing several achievements, is incapable of affecting their perception of the past young boy from the county. This is illustrated when the speaker describes that even if the boy “stood in the field [he’d] disappear” and was still “aiming [his] eyes down the road” of opportunity, in the eyes of people who are most familiar with him, they will be unable to acknowledge this significantly changed individual. In complete contrast with those who are most familiar with him are others who are unfamiliar with his past. These individuals, whom the boy must have encountered while achieving his accomplishments,
God is waiting with open arms, we need only to turn back to him like the waiting father in this parable. I try to always look at my relationship with God as my father (yes I know he his) but I mean like how you view an earthly father. I had a wonderful father growing up. Not matter the situation, good or bad, that I found myself in, I knew that I could always turn to my dad for support, understanding, advice, and he was my ultimate supporter during these times. But he did as any father really should and told me when I was wrong, or that I had really thought through my situation and was making the right decision. I knew I could always turn to him. I think that is the relationship that God seeks to have with us. He wants us to come to him, in good and bad times, to seek his advice, or feel his joy in our joyful times, or even to fall into his arms during trivial times. In the story of the prodigal son, the son wanted everything that his father would have given him, but he wanted it now, unlike when you receive your inheritance after the passing of them. The father gave the son exactly what he wanted, and it hurt him maybe he even suffered a little, but he did it anyway. After the son had taken it and left and then found himself eating with the pigs did he think about his father again. No matter the time that passed, that father was so thrilled to have his son return home to him and accepted him
This story does show an understanding that bad choices and evil (in this story the evil is the dishonour of asking for ones untimely and undeserved inheritance- undeserved as it was to be used with ill intent) will come about. This is an understanding and not a rule to alleviate wrongs done. The understanding is evil is and will happen, but the opportunity to turn evil into love exists as well. The father’s love and reception after being treated dishonourably is the shining example of the allowance of not only the opportunity to make good and evil decisions, but for the opportunity to understand those choices and return to receive love and forgiveness. (Luke
The father sees himself asking if his child is a “god…that [the father] sites mute before [him,” and then asking if he himself is “a god in that [he] should never disappoint?” The father first describes his child as a god because he feels that his son is a being that is untouchable, and it to be able to fully connect with him is something the father does not comprehend. The father then describes himself as a god, asking if he failed to be like a god in his child’s eyes and be perfect in every way. Another metaphor in the poem are the books. The father uses books to connect with his son, much like how Christians use the Bible, a book, to connect with their God. The Bible is something that can have a positive influence on the lives of Christians and support them through their lives all through the use of words. This is similar to the books the father uses. The father does not know how to be a positive influence on his son, so he uses books as a medium to communicate with his son due to the fact that he cannot think of what to say himself. By using these metaphors, the father is comparing his and his child’s relationship to one of a mortal and a god: a relationship that is not familial love, but rather one of a love or worship for a divine being. The father feels that he cannot have a good relationship with his son because his child is something that he cannot understand no matter how hard he tries. He is also worried that he will never live up to his son’s expectations and will fail to support
...ography book. But had been from one end of the country to another. One wholly dependent on money for life, the other indifferent to it. But those were the meaningless things. Their similarities were profound. Both were vitally interested in Macon Dead’s son, and both had close and supportive posthumous communication with their fathers” (139). They are very different in personality, but they both want Milkman, Pilate wishes to teach him love and culture, and Ruth wishes to keep Milkman at her side. These characteristics lead Milkman along his journey, both as hindrances and as salvation, and without these juxtaposed mother-figures in Milkman’s life he would not have a well-rounded character and growth which is brought from his struggles brought by his mother, and his triumphs from Pilate.
The significance of the father’s story and “Coming Home Again” is to show the growing disconnection between a son and a mother. All the mother wants is for her son to be more successful than she is, even if she occasionally regrets sending him away to school. Consequently, the son becomes impatient and distant—as most teenagers do—until he matures into an adult and begins to regret the negative attitude he once held towards his mother. Unfortunately, his mother’s early death caused remorse for his negative attitude towards her as a teenager. Nonetheless, he remains connected with her after her cancer-related death through cooking, in which he finds himself cooking the exact way she would.
I sit on a bench in a sheltered jetty, look over the local lake and write the thoughts that yearn for release. Many years have passed in which I have tried to make sense of locations in time and space. I need to succeed in this endeavour or else I cannot return home. The idea of the prodigal son performing a biblical-like return warms me, yet it necessitates an understanding of me to recover and find the right mental balance to move from the old life to an enriched new one amongst those who support and love me unconditionally.
In the parable of the mustard seed it is necessary to understand that Christ is comparing the Kingdom of Heaven not with the mustard seed, which is significant in size but with the ultimate process of its growth, when it turns into a big bushy tree, in whose branches flocks of birds find shelter. Birds are a metaphor that stands for the peoples of the world of God, who will find shelter (be saved) in the Church of Christ which was to be founded. The mustard seed, in appearance dead and insignificantly small, the least of all seeds. In the words of the parable the mustard seed is a symbol of the mystery of the resurrection from the dead.
Clearly in this story the son is devoted to his father. The crazy thing is that his father only thinks this at the beginning of the story, by the end his thoughts have changed. When you look at it from the son’s eyes, he is devoted the whole way through. The only thing that he is trying to do is please his father, his father doesn’t see it the same as him though. It is pretty evident when the father says, “Keep your tonic – I want none – I want none – I won’t take any more of – of your medicines. None. Never.” (Page 1429, Lines 8-9) I think that this happens a lot in our lives as well. It’s kind of an inexplicable feeling as well, there isn’t much you can do about it. Some people just don’t think that you are being as you should be while you on the other hand do. This story just greatly points out the different views on this, no one will agree on devotion in any type of
The Parables are a section of the Matthews Evangelium in the Christian Bible. It is a common inspiration and focus for interpretation or themes during sermon.
church, and the murder his son has committed. But, soon enough he comes to an