The Prodigal God Discussion Guide: Finding Your Place at the Table

In this six-session small group Bible study, pastor and bestselling author Timothy Keller uses one of Jesus’ best-loved parables – the Prodigal Son – to illustrate the depth of God’s love and how his grace extends into some very unexpected places.

Taking you beyond the traditional focus on the wayward younger son, Keller helps you glean insights from each of the characters in Jesus' parable: the irreligious younger son, the moralistic elder son, and the Father who lavishes his love on both. Inside this guide, you'll explore questions for group discussion and personal reflection, and exercises that will help you experience the truths of Jesus' parable in your own life. The gospel is neither religion nor irreligion, but something else entirely. Whether you're a devout believer or a skeptic, The Prodigal God will challenge you to see Christianity in a whole new way.
This Prodigal God Discussion Guide will help you uncover, personalize, and apply life-changing insights from The Prodigal God DVD and book. In six captivating sessions, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller opens your eyes to the powerful message of Jesus' best known?and least understood?parable. The Prodigal God is a revelation of the very heart of the gospel: God's radical love for sinners of every kind.

This Discussion Guide is designed for use together with The Prodigal God DVD and book (both sold separately). Includes discussion questions for groups and individuals, suggested resources for further reading, Scripture references, helpful notes for leaders, and much more. When used together with the DVD this study provides users with practical tools that transform their faith.

Session include:
1. The Parable The People Around Jesus
2. The Two Lost Sons
3. The Elder Brother
4. The True Elder Brother
5. The Feast of the Father

Free Sermon Series

1. He Welcomes Sinners 

2. Give Me Mine

3. He Came to Himself

4. To Be Called Your Son

5. And Kissed Him

6. We Had to Celebrate

7. The True Older Brother 

Part 1 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:1-10; Ephesians 2

The Parable of the Lost Sheep reveals that just as sheep are, by nature, unable to avoid straying from their shepherd, so humans, because of our sinful nature, are totally lost and in need of rescue by Jesus, our good shepherd. But in rescuing us from our sin, Jesus is not only showing us the power of grace to bring about individual redemption. Through his ministry, he also demonstrates the power of grace to create a new kind of community that bonds all kinds of people together, freely confesses sin, and offers healing and acceptance by the grace of Jesus Christ.

Part 2 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:11-14

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a story about how idolatry erodes community. We often become guilty of idolatry when we place our ultimate desire in getting things from God rather than in God himself. Only when we are captivated by the beauty of the gospel can we be changed by it in such a way that we love God and other people more than ourselves.

Part 3 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:11-20

Martin Luther said that our whole life should be one of repentance. True repentance happens when we come to our senses about our sinfulness, grieve at the sin itself and not just the negative consequences that result from it, and seek forgiveness first from God and then from those we’ve hurt. Repentance is vital to the Christian life because it reconnects us more deeply to the truth that our strength comes not from our own record of moral achievement, but from the record of Jesus Christ.

Part 4 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:21-24

By adopting us as “sons” into His family, God gives us deep security about our status with Him, intimate access to Him, and the future inheritance of the new heavens and new earth that He will one day fashion. Because Christians are all part of one family, we are called to be a community marked by radical commitment, great transparency, free sharing of resources, and life-shaping impact on the lives of each other. We enter this family only by the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, who set aside his status and inheritance as God’s only son, so that we might become children of God.

Part 5 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:11-24

When God forgives of our sins, he assertively initiates the process of reconciliation even before we ask his forgiveness. The essence of God’s forgiveness is that he absorbs the debt of our sinfulness upon Himself in Jesus Christ, rather than requiring us to repay the debt through our moral efforts. Because God sees us for who we are in Jesus and not who we are as sinners, we are empowered to become a community that doesn’t bear grudges, belittle those who have hurt us, or force people to carry the sins of their past with them forever.

Part 6 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:17-32; Isaiah 25; Matthew 19

Exile is a persistent feeling within the human condition because our sin has destroyed the intimacy with God that we once experienced in the Garden of Eden. God sent Jesus, our true elder brother, all the way to earth to rescue us from the exile of our sin and restore us to full communion with God. When we take the Lord’s Supper, we get a taste of the future homecoming feast for all believers when we will celebrate the return of full intimacy between God and us.

Part 7 of Series: The Fellowship of Grace

Scripture: Luke 15:17-32

Jesus introduces us to a new category for what it means to be spiritually lost in the character of the elder brother. The elder brother believes that, through his moral efforts and by following the rules, God owes him. But Jesus’s death on the cross teaches us that God doesn’t owe us anything; instead, we owe God everything. Therefore, as a gospel community, we can’t snobbishly look down on the poor and broken in our midst because we know that, apart from Christ, we are equally poor and broken.