Study Guide to the Parable of the Prodigal Son 

(Luke 15:11-32) 

Suppose we have only the passage that consists of Luke 15:11-32 -- i.e., completely isolated from the actual context in the New Testament narrative Luke has embedded it in.  (To be strict about this, ignore the first part of line 11:  "And he said:...".)  Suppose it is presented under the title "The Story of a Prodigal Son."

Reread now it as a story about some people in a contemporary family.  (If you want, you might translate it into your own language.)  After you have done this, consider the following questions.

How might we identify with the dutiful son?  After all, the father has given the younger son his share of the inheritance, and now here he is back to claim half of what is left.  Doesn't the older son, the one who has stayed by his father, and worked hard under his direction, have a point?  Is the father treating his older son fairly?

Put this another way:  suppose you had a friend with two children, who had an estate worth (say) half-a-million dollars in tax-free municipal bonds.  Suppose that, on the request of his daughter, he converts half of his assets to cash and gives it to her, and adjusts his will accordingly, leaving the rest of his assets, upon his death, to his son.  She takes off for San Francisco and invests it in a series of hot venture-capital dot.coms -- just before the stock market slide of 2001, at the conclusion of which she comes back to Kansas, destitute.  Your friend -- overjoyed at her return, and touched by her sorrow at having blown his hard-earned wealth through misjudgment of the stock market -- comes to you for counsel.  He thinks he should revise his will to divide his assets between his two children.  What would you advise?

If we read Luke's story of the prodigal son independently of its immediate context within Luke's overall narrative, wouldn't it "cover" such a case as the one we are imagining above? 

Before reading further in this study guide, make sure that you have given some careful thought to the above question.

This parable (also known as "The Parable of the Lost Son") is one of a series of parables Jesus tells in the Gospel According to Luke beginning with Chapter 14 and running into Chapter 17.  The link just given, and the text below, is from the "King James Version" (1611).  [You can find other versions at The Bible Unbound.]

Read now the two parables that precede the Parable of the Lost Son.  Notice that in each case Jesus spells out the meaning he intends to convey through them.

[The Parable of the Lost Sheep]

(You can compare the version at Matthew 18.10-14.)

3 ¶]   And he spake this parable unto them, saying,
4]   What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
5]   And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
6]   And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.
7]   I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

[The Parable of the Lost Coin]

8 ¶]   Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
9]   And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.
10]   Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

Verses 7 and 10 do not convey events that constitute the story, but spell out the particular meaning of those events (taken as a whole) that the author (represented by Luke as being Jesus) intends them to convey. 

• We might say they are "applications of" the story Jesus tells to the subject that he is really talking about, and using the story to illuminate, and perhaps make memorable.
• Or we could say that they are "comments about" the story.  
  • If we say this, though, we would want to add that, from the author's standpoint, the story "embodies" the meanings these lines formulate.  The phrase "comments about" might suggest that the contents of these comments are "outside" the story, when surely we want to think of a story's meaning as "an aspect of" the story, hence in an important sense "internal to the story as a whole."  
    • Still, it is important to note that Jesus' story, being a parable, does not embody its meanings in the way that a "case" (imaginary and fictional or real and historical) provides an instance of a more general category of cases that includes a range of other possible particular instances.  (See how the de-contextualized prodigal son story in Luke's text, and the story we imagined about the stock-trading daughter who went bust can "mean" each other -- along with any number of imaginable other particular cases -- in this latter way?  We could call this way of meaning "serving as a hypothetical example."  The lit-crit jargon for a story that means this way is an exemplum [plural, exempla].)

The fact that the story of the Prodigal Son follows directly upon the passage you've just read (two additional stories, with explicit declarations about their "point") tells us 

• that it is not just a story about a family (it is not a case or instance of a particular type of constellation of family behaviors) but a parable, 
  • and more specifically, what it is a parable about -- namely, about God 
    • and, in particular, about God's attitude towards sincerely repentant sinners.

Consider what our knowledge that the father in the story stands for God means for our understanding of the phrase "all that I have," when the father says to the older brother "all that I have is thine."  

• What are some of the things that this phrase must then refer to?  
• How, in other words, is all that a human father has different from all that God has?

See how, once we grasp the story this way, the parallel between the story and the case of the 

Let's take the story to begin with "A certain man had two sons..." (the second half of line 11) and end with line 32 ("...and was lost, and is found").   Is there anything inside that text that prompts us to see that this story is not about an arbitrary fond old human father, but about a heavenly father whose mercy is infinite? 

That is:  In this case, it is the overall context of this kernel narrative text that tells us that this story is a parable, rather than an example (or, if you prefer the formal term, an exemplum).    If it were not embedded within the larger narrative within which it emerges, we as hearers/readers would not be steered to the meaning that it takes on here.

[Other stories may contain within them details that prompt us to figure that the story is parabolic, rather than "realistic."  An example you may be familiar with is Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."  We'll see how this is so later.]

Now let's push further with the parable. 

We note that Jesus puts forward his story of the prodigal son as an allegory to convey a theological point:

Can you formulate in words what the older son represents?

• It can't be the angels and the already-saved in heaven.  (Why not?)
• It can't be the "reprobates," God's rejects -- the fallen angels or the damned.  (Why not?)
• What then can it represent?  (Can it represent anything intelligible -- i.e., consistent with the meanings of the other elements of the story?)

  Suggestions are welcome.  Please send your comments to lyman@ksu.edu .

   Contents copyright © 2004 by Lyman A. Baker. 

Permission is granted for non-commercial educational use; all other rights reserved.

  This page last updated 22 January 2004 .