Dad ran for a very good reason! “In the first century, a Middle Eastern man never, never ran,” writes Matt Williams, of Biola’s Talbot School of Theology. “If he were to run, he would have to hitch up his tunic so he would not trip. If he did this, it would show his bare legs. In that culture, it was humiliating and shameful for a man to show his bare legs.”
“If a Jewish son lost his inheritance among Gentiles, and then returned home,” writes Williams, “the community would perform a ceremony, called the kezazah. They would break a large pot in front of him and yell, ‘You are now cut off from your people!’ The community would totally reject him. “So, why did the father run? He probably ran in order to get to his son before he entered the village.
Lesson 1: You are worth it! “The father runs — and shames himself — in an effort to get to his son before the community gets to him, so that his son does not experience the shame and humiliation of their taunting and rejection,” writes Williams. “The village would have followed the running father, would have witnessed what took place at the edge of the village between father and son. After this emotional reuniting of the prodigal son with his father, it was clear that their would be no kezazah ceremony; there would be no rejecting this son — despite what he has done. The son had repented and returned to the father.”
Lesson 2: God doesn't want to make deals. “The son decides what he will tell his father upon his return,” writes Clark Bunch for The Master’s Table website. “He is no longer worthy to be a son, but will work as a servant. He plans to earn his keep in his father’s house, possibly even to repay the wealth he has squandered. He has a plan all worked out in his head.” However, “the father doesn't even listen to it,” writes Bunch. “He cuts the son’s plan off in the middle, and calls for the robe, ring and shoes. Whatever we offer God in return for his blessing, or what we promise to do to earn our salvation, it will never be enough. God doesn't want to hear our plan, he wants us to admit we can’t do it on our own and depend on his mercy and grace.”
Lesson 3: God isn't keeping score. “What is it about God that is the most difficult for you to accept?” asks Gordon Dasher of The Examiner website. “Is it that He exists? Or that He punishes the disobedient? For most, it is probably that He loves us, that He is concerned with our welfare. The result of this is that many are frustrated, full of fear and guilt. Eventually, this distorted view of God is to be found as the root of all legalism.” “Just look at the ways that we view God,” writes Dasher. “We view Him as the heavenly record-keeper, in spite of the fact that Paul, in I Corinthians 13, said that love keeps no record of wrongs.” Jesus told the Apostle Peter that forgiveness is unlimited.
Lesson 4: Rethink poverty! “Jesus tells this story about a young man who went from riches to rags,” writes Dasher. “How many of us can relate to that? We have at least felt the magnetic pull of independence. We know what it feels like to think that we can make it on our own, that old Pop has lost touch with the modern world, that he doesn't really remember what it feels like to be young.” “Most of us look back on that time in our lives with shame,” writes Dasher. “We think about the money wasted, the time spent in pursuit of things that, when realized, were so empty and void. We cringe at the thought of our own little hog-pens and the slop meals of our youth.”
“The problem with some of us is that we do not have a realistic understanding of the spiritual poverty from which we have been saved,” writes Dasher. “Somehow, somewhere in our perverted thinking, we think that our salvation was no more than a ‘little help’ from God. We could have made it on our own, just not as well. This misses the point of what God's love and forgiveness is all about. “His love is ‘in spite of’ and not ‘because of’ ourselves,” writes Dasher. “And here is the root of all legalism. We just do not like to think of God's love in these terms. It is not complimentary to us. The thought that we are totally and completely impoverished does not appeal to us because it says something about us that we do not like to hear or think about. Our naturally legalistic minds begin to ‘reshape’ God and His grace to fit our thinking. His grace becomes that little extra ‘boost’ we needed to get us over the hump."
to be cont'd...
....... That I may know Him and the power of his resurrection... Philippians 3:10
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