The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

by Timothy Keller

Publisher:

Dutton

, 2008

Overview

Newsweek called New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller a “C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century” in a feature on his first book, The Reason for God. In that book, he offered a rational explanation for why we should believe in God. Now, in The Prodigal God, Keller takes his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity and uses the parable of the Prodigal Son to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation.

Within that parable Jesus reveals God’s prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. This book will challenge both the devout and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way.

Key Features

• Provides compelling arguments for the ongoing relevance of Christian belief in society
• Addresses key practical questions all Christians wrestle with in their journey of faith

Contents

Top Highlights

“Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge just as each son sought to displace the authority of the father in his own life.” (Page 43)

“Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don’t obey God to get God himself—in order to resemble him, love him, know him, and delight him.” (Pages 42–43)

“God’s love and forgiveness can pardon and restore any and every kind of sin or wrongdoing” (Page 24)

“Jesus’s 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 the 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.” (Pages 15–16)

“Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories” (Page 10)

Endorsements

There is more than one way to run away from God and defy him. But there is only one way back: God is so prodigal in his grace that he reaches out to humble and restore and receive both. Few books unpack this theme with greater force than this slim volume from Tim Keller.

—D. A. Carson, professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

The Prodigal God is vintage Keller—biblically faithful with a fresh angularity. That is, Keller seizes a great truth and comes at it from an angle and with language that help us see it in new ways.

—John Piper, Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church

The insight that Tim Keller has about the two individuals in the story and the heart of the God who loves them both... it is not much of an overstatement to say I read that and God wrecked me afresh.

—Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church

Product Details

• Title: The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
• Author: Timothy Keller
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Publisher: Dutton
• Print Publication Date: 2008
• Logos Release Date: 2016
• Pages: 192
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Prodigal son (Parable); Christianity
• ISBNs: 9780525950790, 9781429549820, 9781429549851, 9781440637896, 0525950796, 1429549823, 1429549858, 144063789X
• Resource ID: LLS:PRODIGALGOD
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:24:29Z

About Timothy Keller

Timothy Keller (1950-2023) was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989. For over 20 years, he led a diverse congregation of young professionals with a weekly attendance of over 5,000. He was also president of Redeemer City to City, which plants new churches in New York and other cities. For the last decade, the organization has launched over 200 churches in 35 cities. Logos has collected his sermons in the Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (1989–2011) and Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (2012–2013).

Keller wrote multiple New York Times bestselling books, including The Reason for God and The Prodigal God. His recent work included The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, and Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work. He is also wrote his own commentary and study guide series. Christianity Today has said, “Fifty years from now, if evangelical Christians are widely known for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love of their neighbors, Timothy Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians.”