Evan Recommends: The Prodigal God

We're starting a new "segment" here at Peaceful Owl Knits.  It's called Evan Recommends.  I read a lot.  I love to read.  If I'm not knitting, I'm probably reading.  Sometimes I even find a way to prop up my book and knit at the same time...which Brett says is ridiculous.  So, I'm going to recommend some books, as I read and enjoy them, so you can read and enjoy them too.

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Today's selection is The Prodigal God by Tim Keller.   I just finished reading it this morning, that's how good it was.  (On a side note: I'm really sad that I borrowed this book from my friend, Katie, and have to give it back now.)  So basically the book shares the gospel through the venue of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  It's not just for unbelievers or "seekers' though.  It's really about remembering what the gospel is really about and assessing your heart and how you fit in.

Here's what Keller has to say about the book himself from the introduction:

"This short book is meant to lay out the essentials of the Christian message, the Gospel.  It can, therefore, serve as an introduction to the Christian faith for those who are unfamiliar with its teachings or who may have been away from them for some time.

This volume is not just for seekers, however.  Many lifelong Christian believers feel they understand the basics of the Christian faith quite well and don't think they need a primer.  Nevertheless, one of the signs you may not grasp the unique, radical nature of the Gospel is that you are certain that you do.  Sometimes longtime church members find themselves so struck and turned around by a fresh apprehension of the Christian message that they feel themselves to have been essentially "re-converted."  This book, then, is written to both curious outsiders and established insiders of the faith, both to those Jesus calls "younger brothers" and those he calls "elder brothers" in the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son."

Keller walks through the whole parable word by word in a way that I've never seen or heard before.  He says that the parable is as much about the younger brother as it is about the elder brother and as it is about the father.  I don't want to reveal too much, so I'll leave it at that, but it's really incredible and definitely life changing if you're willing to look at your own heart honestly.

So, I'll just leave you with my favourite passage and you can go buy it...and me too!

" We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides God and His grace as our justification, hope, significance, and security.  We believe the gospel at one level, but at deeper levers we do not.  Human approval, professional success, power, and influence, family and clan identity--all of these things serve as our heart's "functional trust" rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger, and a lack of self-control.  You cannot  change such things through mere willpower, through learning Biblical principles and trying to carry them out.  We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts.  We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves.  That is how we grow."