What Are You Thinking?

prodigal son. One of the great messages of this story in Luke 15 is found in the attitude of the elder brother.

When his younger brother came home after squandering all his father’s inheritance in a distant country, the elder brother saw his father receive him back not as a slave, but as a son. The father reinstated the younger son to his previous condition of full sonship. The elder brother got very upset.

Jesus believed the Pharisees were like the elder brother. When Christians read this story, we tend to condemn the younger brother more than the older. The older brother reprimanded his father and said, “When this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:30).

What he said revealed what had really been in his heart. The elder brother needed to have a mental catharsis. He was good on the outside. He was clean on the outside like the scribes and the Pharisees. But inside, he was filled with sin.

I can certainly relate to this because I was always a good kid externally. I learned that external rebellion was a dangerous and unpopular thing. So, my rebellion was internal. I could go through all the externalities of conformity, but inside there was total rebellion, anarchy, lust, and everything else going on in my mind. I didn’t need to go to a faraway country because I carried it with me all the time in my mind.

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