Luke 15:4 Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
Luke 15:8 Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
Luke 15:11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them 13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
In the storytelling world of first-century Judaism, repetition with variation was a way of signaling that something deeper was unfolding. — Tim Keller
In the cultural world of Jesus’ listeners, the most glaring absence in the story of the prodigal is not the missing son, it is the missing pursuit of the older brother. In a patriarchal household, the father did not chase shame. He bore it, but he did not run after it.
That responsibility belonged to the eldest son. The older brother was meant to leave the house, seek out his sibling, restore the family’s honor, and mediate reconciliation. That was his role. That was his duty.
Genesis 4:9 Am I my brother’s keeper?
Romans 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Romans 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.