Where are the Younger Brothers?

// December 3rd, 2008 // Church Life

This is a quote from p.15-16 of Tim Keller’s new book The Prodigal God.  The book is a beautiful rendering of the prodigal sons parable found in Luke 15:11-32.  Keller argues that the younger brother (the one traditionally called the “prodigal”) is representative of the irreligious.  The older brother is representative of the religious of the day.  Both are totally and equally lost.

Jesus’ teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day.  However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect.  The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones.  We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people.  The licentious and liberated or broken and marginal avoid church.  That can only mean one thing.  If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.  If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think.

FOR COMMENT: Is this true in your experience?  What must happen for this NOT to be true?

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4 Responses to “Where are the Younger Brothers?”. Gravatars are enabled.

  1. Sarah says:
    December 3, 2008 at 6:15 am

    I believe that we are largely missing one component of Jesus' ministry that is essential for attracting the “younger brothers.” We have to go out and be among them. We Christians put ourselves in a protective tower of Christian influence, and we seem “untouchable” to them. We're Pharisees a lot of the time. Jesus went TO them, he didn't wait for them to wander into his house.

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  2. ded says:
    December 3, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    I like Sarah's response. It begs another question, however: How do we spend meaningful time with unbelievers and keep ourselves from fellowshipping with them?

    Consider an image. A piece of paper. It is half white and half black. Dividing the two halves is a narrow strip of pure, translucent yellow bringing to mind light. The black represents all those who seek to live their lives within dark realms of human existence. The white represents those who chose “moral” or “good” pursuits. Neither is the Truth. The image is an analogy of the dichotomy between those who function largely out-of-control or in opposition to social norms and those who seek to function in control and as representatives of social norms. (Of course, as rapidly as social norms are changing complicates things a bit, but that is another discussion.) The narrow, yellowish middle divider is representative of the Spirit of Truth, the Light of the World, the Living God, Jesus.

    This narrow way between black and white touches both sides of the dichotomy, up close and personal, and calls to both sides to stop satisfying the soul according to man's wisdom: the black side = the “wisdom” we call street sense, and the white side represents the “wisdom” of man's moralistic religions, including Christian religion. To be in the yellow, means to be fully living a life in-dwelt by the Spirit of Jesus, thus knowing the fulfillment of satisfaction for the soul as is only found through the righteousness of Christ.

    The young brothers are demanding reality and waiting to hear teaching which reveals the Truth of the narrow way. The narrow way is not doctrine or law. It is the narrow way of spirit life, trusting in Jesus alone for our righteousness, and thus ushering the individual into Kingdom reality. Spirit life eschews religious good works. The narrow way is life which is secure enough to embrace the non-believer fully though he or she walks in the wisdom of darkness.

    The younger brothers will rise up when the sons of God reveal themselves.

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  3. bcotten says:
    December 3, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    The younger brothers will rise up when the sons of God reveal themselves.

    That sums it up for me. And I love that black/white image. I'm stealing it… ;-)

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  4. ded says:
    December 5, 2008 at 3:58 am

    Glad you feel the black.white image is helpful. To keep you from “stealing”, I officially remove any implied copyright.

    Reply

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