by Timothy Keller
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I read this book recently and wanted to share it. It's a short book that lays out the essentials of the gospel. Keller explains the Parable of the Prodigal Son in a way that illuminates the meaning of the gospel.
The book is laid out in seven brief chapters which aim to uncover the grace of God, as revealed in this parable. Keller shows how the parable describes two kinds of lost people, not just one. Most people can identify the lostness of the "prodigal son," the younger brother in Jesus' story, who takes his inheritance early and squanders it on riotous living. But Keller shows that the "elder brother" in the parable is no less lost. Together, the two brothers are illustrations of two kinds of people in the world. Jesus uses the younger and elder brothers to portray the two basic ways people try to find happiness and fulfillment: the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery. Both brothers are in the wrong.
Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of rules. Jesus, though, shows us that a man who has violated nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors may be every bit as spiritually lost as the most profligate, immoral person. Why? Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life.What both brothers, and both types of people, need is Jesus, whom Keller presents as "the true elder brother," the one who comes to our rescue at his own expense.
This book helped me to understand just how amazing and needed God's grace is for me, every day.
