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To: MurphsLaw
Do two things: first, locate when in His ministry Jesus gave the parable, and second to whom did He address that story? Israel has walked away from Messiah, but Messiah is waiting for them to return one day.

Try a different gotcha.

1,055 posted on 03/29/2022 12:03:34 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: MHGinTN
Israel has walked away from Messiah, but Messiah is waiting for them to return one day.
Try a different gotcha


I was asking your opinion of the meaning of The Prodigal. How can an opinion be a gotcha?

And no I dont totally agree with your response. It has to have more meaning beyond time of ministry or audience. And yes, while parables can work on different levels using metaphor and figurative language - I'm asking about the meaning here.
Sure there's plenty of symbol, "a Father had 2 sons..." this parable even starts out evoking Adam's offspring... yes, and Israel squandered God's covenants..
But the parable is not about a retelling old stories- its not the meaning of what Jesus is conveying what this can be about. Again what is the meaning ?

Clearly, the son returns, is restored, as an action completed... through a noted process of being alive, then dying, and living again. .. for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Look at the at ALL of Luke15...what Christ is talking about leading up to the Son...
The LOST sheep, the LOST coin, and into the LOST Son...
THAT'S your meaning I believe..
   In each,  of these examples smoething is LOST, and searched for,  AND found. Yes, the Father never stopped loving- or gave up on the son, even though he rejected his Father’s home. But the wages of his din were death, and do he was dead, as the Father noted. Dead.
The Son valued his inheritance, more than life with the Father.
The truth in this we miss is that God's mercy is ALWAYS looking for us through Grace- even when we are lost.

And it is also pointing out we cannot LOSE something we never had.
You don't go after a straying sheep that does not belong to you, or search for a coin that was not yours to begin with.

We can and do get lost. We can lose ourselves- sometimes maybe never to be found... The Son was not "plucked" from the Father either- rather the son rejects the Father's home- and said in so many words to the Father- "I cannot wait for you to die"
We sons can also choose to die, as the Prodigal did- but we can live again.
And we live, not by clinging to the Divine life put into us,  like it us our possession we own, but rather in giving that Grace away to the other.


1,125 posted on 03/29/2022 8:51:46 PM PDT by MurphsLaw (+++11"How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread?"+++)
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