The Prodigal God

by Keller, Timothy

• ISBN13: 9781594484025
• ISBN10: 1594484023
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-03-01
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade

Summary

The New York Timesbestselling author uncovers the essential message of Jesus, locked inside his most familiar parable. Newsweekcalled New York Timesbestselling author 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 for why we should believe in God. Now, in The Prodigal God, Keller takes his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity and uses the parable of the Prodigal Son to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation. Within that parable Jesus reveals God's prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. This book will challenge both the devout and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way.

Author Biography

Timothy Keller was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and educated at Bucknell University, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological Seminary. He is the pastor of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and their three young sons. Today, Redeemer has nearly six thousand regular attendees at five services, a host of daughter churches, and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xiii
The Parable	p. 3
The People Around Jesus: "All gathering around to hear him."	p. 9
Two Kinds of People	p. 9
Why People Like Jesus but Not the Church	p. 13
The Two Lost Sons: "There was a man who had two sons."	p. 20
The Lost Younger Brother	p. 20
The Younger Brother's Plan	p. 24
The Lost Elder Brother	p. 29
Redefining Sin: "All these years I've been slaving for you."	p. 34
Two Ways to Find Happiness	p. 34
Two Lost Sons	p. 39
A Deeper Understanding of Sin	p. 43
Both Wrong; Both Loved	p. 51
Redefining Lostness: "The older brother became angry and refused to go in."	p. 55
Anger and Superiority	p. 55
Slavishness and Emptiness	p. 65
Who Needs to Know This?	p. 74
The True Elder Brother: "My son, everything I have is yours."	p. 82
What We Need	p. 82
Who We Need	p. 89
Redefining Hope: "He set off for a far country."	p. 101
Our Longing for Home	p. 101
The Difficulty of Return	p. 110
The Feast at the End of History	p. 114
The Feast of the Father: "He heard music and dancing."	p. 118
Salvation Is Experiential	p. 119
Salvation Is Material	p. 123
Salvation Is Individual	p. 127
Salvation Is Communal	p. 139
Babette's Feast	p. 143
Acknowledgments	p. 150
Notes	p. 152
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