One Great Hour of Sharing

• This World is Not My Home (JR... Baxter, Jr.)
• Come Home, It's Suppertime (Ira Stamphill)
• Just As I Am (Charlotte Elliot)
• Coming Home (William James Kirkpatrick)
• I Am Resolved (James Henry Fillmore)
• Softly and Tenderly (Will Thompson)
• Christ from Whom All Blessings Flow   (Charles Wesley)
• Amazing Grace (John Newton)

• He thinks of his father's abundance and resolves to return, confessing his sin and offering himself as servant.

- William Baird, Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary, p. 694
• When Jesus eats with outcasts, it is not just humanitarian broadmindedness, as though the laws of God or the Pharisaic regulations did not matter;  it is God breaking through the condemnation of his own law in order to reach out and save the lost.

- Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary, p. 412
• If we plead not guilty, we put ourselves upon a trial by the covenant of innocency, which will certainly condemn us.  If guilty, with a contrite, penitent, and obedient heart, we refer ourselves to the covenant of grace, which offers forgiveness to those that confess their sins.

- Matthew Henry, Commentary, Vol. 5, p. 744
• The first [part of the parable] tells of the prodigal son and reveals the attitude of God's heart toward the world of sinners.  The second part tells of the elder brother, depicts the spirit of the Pharisees and scribes in their murmuring against Jesus, and reveals God's attitude to them.

J. McNicol, New Bible Commentary (1954), p. 854
• Before he reached home his father was already looking for his arrival, and before he could blurt out the whole of his intended confession, his father had welcomed him back into the family circle...

I.H. Marshall, New Bible Commentary, Revised (1970), p. 912
• How accurately are the first steps of true repentance here pointed out!

John Wesley, Notes Upon the New Testament, Vol. 1, on vs. 18
• It is, no doubt, just as hard, perhaps harder, for God to forgive our respectable, refined, polite, selfish, snobbish sins, as it is for Him to forgive the grosser sins of the poor souls that have lost in the battle of life.

Henry H. Halley, Halley's Bible Handbook, p. 514
• I have sinned-- Very different from the bold address of verse 12.

D.D. Whedon, Commentary on the Gospels, Vol. Luke-John, p. 157
• When we feel our nothingness and own it -- it is then that he would put all heaven into our hearts.

- Joseph Parker, People's Bible, Vol. 21, p. 348
• The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are living when we pray to our Father.  He is in heaven, his dwelling place;  the Father's house is our homeland.  Sin has exiled us from the land of the covenant, but conversion of heart enables us to return to the Father, to heaven. 

- Catechism of the Catholic Church,  ¶ 2795

Luke 15:18

• Robertson's Word Pictures (Crosswalk)
• Strong's Concordance (Crosswalk)

• Hypertext Webster 
• Roget's Thesaurus
• Anistemi - KJV Greek Lexicon  (Crosswalk)
• ANISTEMI, to stand up or to make to stand up, is used
• of a physical change of position
• metaphorically, of rising up antagonistically against persons
• of rising to a position of pre-eminence or power
• of a spiritual awakening from lethargy

W.E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 64ff

Sinned

• Hypertext Webster 
• Roget's Thesaurus
• Hamartano - KJV Greek Lexicon  (Crosswalk)
• HAMARTANO, lit., to miss the mark

W.E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 1046

• Every change begins with a decision.  Until the decision is made, nothing changes.
• The father's forgiveness was ready even before the prodigal began to consider his sin -- perhaps even before he committed it.
• The idea of home is intriguing... that is, we're not going someplace unfamiliar when we repent, but home.

• Spurgeon, Morning & Evening, Luke 15:18
• Clement of Alexandria et al.: On the Prodigal Son

• Textweek
• World Wide Study Bible
• LivingWeb:  Gospel According to St. Luke

Gospel Reading

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220.7 - Bible Commentaries

•  Prodigal Son
•  
•  The Parable of the Lost (Prodigal) Son: Luke 15.11-32 
•  The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Christianity and Buddhism 
•  Kid's Corner - Stories from the Bible / Prodigal Son 
•  Parable of the Prodigal Son-Sermon Outline 
•  XI. The Parable of the Prodigal Son