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Item Description...
Product Description
The Prayer of Jabez used a little-known story of the Bible to redefine success for Christians. The Prodigal God uses a famous story of the Bible to redefine nothing less than the central Christian message for believers and skeptics alike.
Newsweek called renowned minister Timothy Keller “a C. S. Lewis for the twenty-first century” in a feature on his first book, The Reason for God. In that book, he offered a rational explanation of why we should believe in God. Now, in The Prodigal God, he uses one of the best-known Christian parables to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation.
The Prodigal Son is the most well-known parable in the Bible. Incredibly, it is also almost universally misunderstood. Taking his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity, Keller uncovers the essential message of Jesus, hidden in plain sight for centuries. Within this parable is the lost message of Jesus—where he outlines just how his followers are supposed to love and accept one another so they can join him in Heaven. With this book, both the devout and skeptics will see Christianity in a whole new way.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 160
Dimensions: Length: 7.4" Width: 5.3" Height: 1"
Weight: 0.54 lbs.
Release Date Oct 30, 2023
Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
ISBN 0525950796
EAN 9780525950790
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Availability 1263 units.
Availability accurate as of Jul 15, 2024 08:41.
Usually ships within one to two business days from New Kensington, PA.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay. |
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | wow, what a wake up to christians May 28, 2010 |
| A was telling a preacher friend of mine about somethings I had seen in Luke 15, my friend humbly smiled and handed me this book. After reading this book I will never call it the story of the prodigal son, you see that in the first few pages.Very easy read packed full of truth and discovery of the TWO SONS parable. If you want to understand Christ truth of His parable, you better get this book. The book has some philosphical points, but very insightful and helpful.I am so thankful for a Prodigal God,(read the book) What a good book! | | | | must to understand the parable of the two lost sons May 23, 2010 |
| This book is a must. Explains it really is about a parable in which both sons younger and older lead lost lives. They want the wealth of the father rather than the father. We see the mercy of the father even at display before the younger son tried to rehearse his repentance speech and also the mercy of the father when he entertains the older son to come back into the feast even though he is bluntly rejected. Mercy and Grace is set in an offensive shape with the younger son and older son alike. One really ends up pondering if this is the way God works to remove people from either side of lostness, that is displaying His Grace abundantly to shake the foundations of stiff necked human hearts. | | |  | A tortured Parable May 19, 2010 |
Pastor Keller's little book "The Prodigal God" is a big fiasco. Keller has no understanding of the parable. To sing the praises of the Prodigal Son is as absurd as to sing the praises of the Lost Coin in the previous parable: its beauty, how good it feels in the hand, how rich it makes a person feel, etc. while it represents something entirely different.
A parable is a devise to bring a point across in a forceful way by comparing an unfamiliar situation with an entirely different but familiar situation. To take the Prodigal Son literally is missing the point entirely, as much as taking the coin in the previous parable literally. Keller's misinterpretation results in a preference for an out-of-control lifestyle that can be converted at one's convenience into a grand reception by God, while leaving those who pursue an obedient churchy lifestyle in the cold. This interpretation is attractive and may account for his success as a pastor but it is far from reality. Because Keller's interpretation does not fit the parable, much of the story has to be ignored. As this would leave the interpretation rather thin, a series of wisecracks are introduced and elevated to the same level of wisdom as the parable. The sorry result is a redefinition of sin, of lostness and of hope, all based on a misinterpretation of a single parable!
The world is staggering under the consequences of a horrendous load of sin and the church is silent about it and even cooperative because it has no clue of what sin is. Sin is the transgression of the Law. Consider: twelve thousand veterans try to commit suicide every year of which half are successful. The Law: universal conscription but those who are negatively inclined towards war are not allowed to participate. How much hell this simple rule would have saved! Every three months 250,000 new families enter into foreclosure. The Law: you shall not charge interest to your countryman. Not realistic? Did you consider the consequences of outlawing interest? What about health, tax, government, etc.? The present teaching of the church does not address any of these problems and only provides the false comfort that you are o.k., just sweat it out. The purpose of the very expensive lessons of this life, which is the preparation of the citizens of God's Kingdom, is generally foreign to the church. Keller's teaching, as well as that of most of the church, is false and irrelevant.
| | | | TRULY LIFE CHANGING May 18, 2010 |
| This book explains in depth the true meaning of the parable of the prodigal son which is actually about both sons - I plan on reading it again and again and giving it away to others as well. You will want to read it slowly and take it all in - it is rich in truth about man and truth about God. | | | | Excellent beyond words May 17, 2010 |
This is one of the best books I have read. It is sweet, kind, compassionate - and uncompromisingly true to the Bible. If you have been a Christian for a while, you know the parable of the prodigal son, sometimes called the parable of the loving Father. The first time you heard it, you probably noticed the younger brother - the one who wasted his inheritance with sinful living - more than the other characters. Later, you may have noticed the Father, who showed great love and grace towards the sinful son. Keller gives adequate attention to these two, but helps the reader see the often unnoticed elder brother, and to see his self-righteousness.
Keller helps us see some of the elder brother, and some of the younger brother, in ourselves and in people we know. I liked the way Keller said that many people don't spend their whole lives in elder brother mode, or younger brother mode. We display one behavior at one time in our life, and the other behavior in another time in our life, moving back and forth several times, and sometimes showing some of them both simultaneously.
While I was reading the introductory material, it occurred to me that the only reason the younger brother came home was that he wanted the material things his Father could give him. He never came home because he loved his Father. Yet the Father lovingly welcomed him home. The elder brother did not show love for the Father, yet the Father asked him to come inside to join the celebration. I know, not every detail in a parable represents a spiritual truth, and maybe this is one of those details.
After a thorough exposition of the parable and its immediate context, Keller puts it in the context of the whole Bible and redemptive history, starting in Chapter Six, Redefining Hope: "He set of for a far country." I had some difficulty with Chapter Six. The sub-chapters are Our Longing for Home, The Difficulty of Return, and The Feast at the End of History. Keller does provide some transition into the new topic. He connects the feasts - the feast that the Father gave for the younger son when he returned, the Lord's Supper, and the feast described near the end of Revelation. Maybe my difficulty was more my failing than Keller's. But as he mentions his wife's vacation home, and John Knowles and John Steinbeck and holidays and the German word sehnsucht, I had to keep thinking, "now how is this connected to the parable?" Maybe this chapter is the source of complaints from some reviewers who say it is unbiblical or extra-biblical. I think this outside information helps Keller to tell Biblical truths, which is what an author is supposed to do, isn't it?
I read all of the 1-star and 2-star reviews of this book. I could not detect a common complaint from these reviewers. One called Keller liberal. I don't find Keller liberal at all. I find him completely orthodox. One reviewer did not understand the symbolism of the elder brother. It has nothing to do with birth order and everything to do with self-righteousness. One reviewer received a book that had defective binding. One reviewer did not understand the meaning of `prodigal', even though Keller explains it well, and thought the book title was unacceptable. I wonder if some of these reviewers had a bit of the elder brother's attitudes, and it hurt too much.
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