First off I want to state that at the beginning of the year I was very skeptical about this class and worried. I never really read the bible a lot and didn’t know a lot about it. After coming to this class each Monday and Wednesday for a couple of weeks, I have really grown to love it. I have learned a lot from listening to you and have enjoyed hearing the way you put things when it comes to the bible, everything you say makes you think. The thing that caught my attention the most was when you said that each person likes to ask God for things, or ask him to do things for us, and I was the worst for that. And when you said how would you feel if someone just asked for things and was never really thankful? I really thought about that a lot and anytime now that I pray to him I always thank him for everything he has given me. I don’t need anything else, he has already gave me so much, and now it’s time for me to give him my thanks. When we first read Luke 15:11-32 (The Parable of the Prodigal Son) I had never heard that story and It immediately caught my attention. A brief summary of the Bible story is that Jesus tells the story of a man who has two sons. The younger son asks his father to give him his portion of the inheritance early. The son receives it and begins to waste his money on wild living, basically he is a partier and is irresponsible when it comes to saving money. So when the
Cooper 2 money runs out, the son finds himself in need. The younger son finally comes to his senses, he realizes he was stupid so he decides to return to his father and ask for forgiveness. The father forgives him and welcomes his son back with open arms. He is happy by the return of his lost son, so immediately the father turns to his servants and asks them to prepare a giant feast in celebration.
The older son is not one bit happy he thinks to himself why does he get to return and have a huge party and celebration when I am the one that works and does everything my father says. So the older brother is very jealous and mad about this and the father says to his oldest son “Son thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”
So now back to the reason why the older brother was mad, the older brother always did what his father asked him and worked hard and never spent money recklessly. And the youngest son was a partier and took all the money and as soon as he returns he gets a party thrown for him. And this whole time when I first heard this story, I thought to myself why should the older brother be mad? He did everything he was supposed to and the youngest gets a party, but when I continued to read I realized that all that money and stuff doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that the youngest son is sorry and asked for forgiveness and has finally found god, you should be happy for him no jealous.
So why did the father accept the youngest son back after all the things the youngest son did to him? The youngest son wasn’t thankful for anything that he got and never thanked his father, so why did the father accept him back? The father did not care about his money or
Cooper 3 anything, all he cared about was letting his son find his way. And if that was to let him experience the world the hard way then that is what he had to do. The father knew exactly