The Lost Son

The Lost Son

“Father, give me my share of the estate” (Luke 15:12), “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men” (Luke 15:19), and “…we have to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32), are all very significant quotes in the parable of the Prodigal Son that Jesus tells in the Bible.
When the sentence “father, give me my share of the estate” is read, the first thing that comes to mind is that the son is obviously planning on doing something with this money sooner than expected.   This clearly foreshadows that something to do with the money, whether it be good or bad, will happen at some point in the story.   One would assume that something bad would happen primarily because this is just a young boy taking his inheritance from his father.   Sure enough, the boy goes out and ends up spending it all on alcohol and prostitutes.
Not long after the spree of spending all the money, a famine hits the whole country, and the boy is desperate for food and will do anything to get it.   After realizing the only choice he really has is to go back home to his father, he decides to do just that.   When his father runs out and greets him with kisses and compassion, the son says “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.”   By saying these words the son expects to do just that and not receive sympathy from his father.   Instead, to his surprise, his father is amazing excited to see him and is overjoyed that he has returned home.
This leads into the end of the story where the lost sons brother begins to get mad because he tells his father how he has always been there for him doing everything he asks, and yet he has never received any kind of benefit or reward for doing so.   That is when the father responds with “…we have to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is...