The story of the prodigal son is about a younger son who left home to live life on his own terms. It also shows how the father, despite his waywardness, welcomed him with open arms. The story also examines the elder brother’s attitude, who is upset about the grand party thrown for a son who wasted family resources, led a sinful life, and now returns home claiming to have repented and changed. The story ends with two sons: one returns with remorse, but the other is the prodigal son.
The younger brother wanted to escape his father’s control, so he took his share of the inheritance, left home, rejected his father’s moral values, and lived as he wished. The older brother stayed home and obeyed his father in every way. However, when his father spent the remaining wealth on the wayward son who had returned, he exploded with anger. This revealed that he also did not love his father.
In his book “The Prodigal Prophet,” Tim Keller highlights different perspectives in the story of Jonah, comparing to the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. “The elder brother was not obeying out of love but only as a way, he thought, of putting his father in his debt, getting control over him so he had to do as his older son asked. Neither son trusted his father’s love. Both were trying to find ways of escaping his control. One did it by obeying all the father’s rules, the other by disobeying them all.”
Many prodigal “elder brothers” in the Church today live their lives fulfilling religious obligations, going to church regularly, yet without the heart to reach out to the lost. How can one, after knowing and experiencing the love of Christ, not have the heart for the lost? Have people become so complacent with the bare minimum of just attending church, or has the Church failed to make them uncomfortable over lost souls? We are all at fault. Either their experience of conversion is questionable, or the Church has numbed their heart.
In the story of Jonah, Jonah turns out to be the prodigal prophet. The classic Old Testament example of these two ways of running from God appears in the book of Jonah. Jonah takes turns acting as both the “younger brother” and the “older brother.” In the first two chapters of the book, Jonah disobeys and runs away from the Lord, and yet ultimately repents and asks for God’s grace, just as the younger brother leaves home but returns repentant.
In the last two chapters, however, Jonah obeys God’s command to go and preach to Nineveh. In both cases, however, he tries to control the agenda. The text indicates that Jonah resisted doing anything or even talking to the pagan sailors. The bad prophet, Jonah, is the very opposite of the Good Samaritan. He has no concern for the “common good,” no respect for the nonbelievers around him. In the New Testament book of James, the author argues that if you say you have a relationship with God based on His grace, and you see someone “without clothes and daily food” (James 2:15) and do nothing about it, you only prove that your faith is “dead”—unreal (verse 17).
That is why James can say, “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful” (verse 13). Jonah's lack of mercy in his attitude and actions toward others reveals that he was a stranger in his heart to God's saving mercy and grace.
Daniel C. Timmer writes: “Jonah’s anti-missionary activity has ironically resulted in the conversion of non-Israelites.”
There is only one purpose and one mission, whether you are a child of God or serving God in some capacity. It is to seek and save the lost. You can serve Him through your career or calling. It doesn’t matter where you are positioned. Church, it’s time to realign your focus by stirring and igniting your congregation's hearts to be witnesses and share the good news intentionally.
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