Stewardship

Prodigal Son Revisited

by Honey Stone
05/23/17
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One day someone read the story of the prodigal son for a group of use to discuss. For the first time I noticed the slaves in the story. This put a whole different shape to the story I've been told many times. This was not just a story of someone who is saved. This is much deeper and so I studied the different levels of relationship to the Father within it.

The house slaves did not even realize they were slaves. They did their work without a relationship. They did what they were told to do. They got to work in the house but they did not live in the house.

The elder brother thought he was mature. After all he was a son. Think of this, many Christians do not even come into son-ship. They remain either slaves to works or slaves to sin.

The younger son starts off pretty good. He actually experienced son-ship (some of the promises of God).

Then he becomes the prodigal son. He could represent the carnal Christian but maybe he also represents the son who was not wise with his inheritance.

Let’s look at what the word prodigal means and where it comes from in Luke 13:15. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with ‘asotos’ living.

The Strong’s concordance defines asotos as:

Asotos = (akin to asōtos, "a prodigal") – extravagantly wasteful because of "loose living," i.e. a debauched, profligate lifestyle 

• Debach = destroy or debase the moral purity of; corrupt.


• Profligate = shamelessly immoral; self-indulgent.


• Prodigal = characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure

Prodigal can mean a number of things from wasteful spending of resources, selfishness, and impurity.

But then the prodigal son came to his senses. The key is that he did not go back to the pig pen. Instead realized his depravity and went in to eat at the feast. I think this feast is the wedding feast. In this place there is singing and dancing. There is a lot of joy. This step with the prodigal son is a deeper intimacy than just being a son. It is being a bride with full surrender and deep intimacy.

So let’s look at the story again.

• There are the slaves with good works in God’s house but no relationship. These are the religious ones. And you were taught that the elder brother was religious.


• There is the elder brother who had a son-ship relationship and inheritance. He had no idea that it could get any better. Man was he upset that his brother got the revelation of a deeper relationship and not him.


• There is the younger son (stage 1) who once had the inheritance through son-ship but did not value it. He was doing fine until he became lukewarm and dissatisfied. He got a sense of entitlement mixed with pride and deception. He did not value his son-ship. Wait a minute. Are there any in the church like this?


• There is the prodigal son (stage 2) who became a carnal or wasteful Christian. This caused a breach in relationship with a limited inheritance that ran out. Wait, I was taught that this was the unsaved or the back-slidden. Umm, it could be but it could also be the Christian who is a bad steward of his gifts, resources, body, mind, devotion time, etc.


• There is the son turned to bride (stage 3) who came to his senses and bypassed the son-ship and came into becoming the spotless bride. This is a place of total surrender. Ahhhh, and who is in this category? And do you have to turn carnal to turn around? 

Where are you in this story? Selah.

But wait. Let's look at the definition of prodigal again. Here's another definition of prodigal - having or giving something on a lavish scale.

Okay, then the Father is also a prodigal but he is a righteous prodigal Father. He is lavish with his love and his resources (fatted calf and party). When we surrender to him we can flow in the right prodigal way. What kind of partier are you: a carnal or a bridal partier?

*This may not be the most intense study on the topic but I believe it is deeper than most sermons. Take this revelation from here and go deeper. Feel free to disagree. I am just a student like anyone else. But I thought this was an interesting insight.