With over a million copies sold, this classic work is essential reading for all who ask, “Where has my struggle led me?” A chance encounter with a reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son catapulted Henri Nouwen on an unforgettable spiritual adventure. Here he shares the deeply personal and resonant meditation that led him to discover the place within where God has chosen to dwell. As Nouwen reflects on Rembrandt’s painting in light of his own life journey, he evokes a powerful drama of the classic parable in a rich, captivating way that is sure to reverberate in the hearts of readers. Nouwen probes the several movements of the parable: the younger son’s return, the father’s restoration of sonship, the elder son’s resentfulness, and the father’s compassion. The themes of homecoming, affirmation, and reconciliation will be newly discovered by all who have known loneliness, dejection, jealousy, or anger. The challenge to love as God loves, and to be loved as God’s beloved, will be seen as the ultimate revelation of the parable known to Christians throughout time, and is here represented with a vigor and power fresh for our times.

Steven (Red) Salas was born into a traditional Catholic family in Racine, Wisconsin. His life seemed to be a contradiction from the very beginning. It was not a loving Catholic home, instead his parents divorced when he was quite young (six years old), and he and his brother lived with his physically and verbally abusive mother. Even though he went to weekly church services, he actually felt a deeper connection to the Christian programming found on TV. As Red grew into adolescence, he quickly found himself in trouble with the law on multiple occasions and forsaking his faith. He didn't start hanging out with the wrong crowd; instead, he was the wrong crowd. His mother eventually gave up and sent him to live with his father, but the courts finally ordered Red to live with a foster family, hoping that this would get him back on the straight and narrow. He returned back to his wild ways when he was allowed to go home to his father. When the time came that Red became a young father himself, he knew he had to do something different. So he defied the odds and joined the US Army. The military proved to be a positive change that Red needed. He accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior, learned respect, and was achieving success in his military job. Until one day, an army work-related accident happened; he suffered a traumatic brain injury. The side effects began to take over, but being a "strong" man, he pushed things aside. He got out of the army and started a new life with his family in San Antonio, Texas. The side effects of his TBI by then had helped to make it difficult to hold down a job, his first marriage fell apart, and his faith seemed to be drained. Red was left raising three daughters by himself and still seeking the unconditional love from a woman that had always been a void in his life. Time passes and wounds heal. He found himself praying to G-d but still not fully allowing him to work in his life. Red met his second wife, the love of his life. But between the process of climbing the ranks and finally achieving the rank of vice president of the notorious San Antonio chapter of the Bandidos MC (one of the most well-known and dangerous outlaw 1%er motorcycle clubs in the world) and the continued side effects of his TBI, their marriage fell apart. Red hit rock bottom. The pain from the TBI became too much and he checked himself into the VA hospital. Finally, he got the medical help that he needed for so many years. He reconciled his marriage and retired from the Bandidos MC after ten years of loyalty. Follow the story of a young Catholic boy turned born-again Christian as he defies his faith, gets mixed up with the law, and becomes a member of the Infamous Bandidos MC. But like the Prodigal Son, he returns home because of G-d's mercy and Red's faith in Jesus Christ.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Prodigal Prophet uncovers the essential message of Jesus, locked inside his most familiar parable. Newsweek called renowned minister 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 of 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.

Methodology - Analysis of four parables - Exegesis of Luke.

The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming is Henri Nouwen’s most popular book, selling over one million copies since its publication in 1992. What accounts for its ongoing popularity as a spiritual classic? Drawing from extensive research in Nouwen’s archives, author and Chief Archivist for the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, Gabrielle Earnshaw, provides a detailed account of how the book came to be written, shedding light on Nouwen’s writing process and aspects of his life experience that influenced his insights and ideas. Earnshaw examines Nouwen’s intellectual formation as well as the impact of his family and friends on the shape of the book. Letters, many published here for the first time, give us a privileged look at Henri’s world during the nine years he took to complete the book. Earnshaw considers how it compares to other books published at the same time to place the work and its author in a historical, cultural and religious/spiritual context. Finally, she explores how Nouwen himself was changed by the book and why twenty-three later it continues to touch the hearts and minds of 21st century readers.

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

"The return of the prodigal son was originally published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 1992"--Copyright page.

Loving a prodigal is a long and desperate journey, filled with fear, worry, anger, self- recrimination. You wait for the phone call--will it be from jail or the hospital? You plead with your loved one. You search for help. You feel the shame. You cry out to God, "How long, Lord?" Author Judy Douglass knows these lovers of prodigals well. She is one herself and has created a large and growing community with others. When You Love a Prodigal is a collection of 90 essays--90 days of perspective on what God offers to you as you love your prodigal. At the end of each brief essay, response questions will help you process how God intends to use the wilderness journey to mold your spiritual life. You can work through it day by day, or you can read it straight through. Judy has traveled this road with her own prodigal--reading, learning, praying, and seeking God. Over and over he continued to give her wisdom, he sustained her, he covered her with grace, and he filled her with hope. May you, too, be strengthened and filled with hope as together you discover how God will take you through your own valley.

The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming is Henri Nouwen’s most popular book, selling over one million copies since its publication in 1992. What accounts for its ongoing popularity as a spiritual classic? Drawing from extensive research in Nouwen’s archives, author and Chief Archivist for the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, Gabrielle Earnshaw, provides a detailed account of how the book came to be written, shedding light on Nouwen’s writing process and aspects of his life experience that influenced his insights and ideas. Earnshaw examines Nouwen’s intellectual formation as well as the impact of his family and friends on the shape of the book. Letters, many published here for the first time, give us a privileged look at Henri’s world during the nine years he took to complete the book. Earnshaw considers how it compares to other books published at the same time to place the work and its author in a historical, cultural and religious/spiritual context. Finally, she explores how Nouwen himself was changed by the book and why twenty-three later it continues to touch the hearts and minds of 21st century readers.

OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD! It's the most powerful force in the universe, our only hope for love and forgiveness, and a foretaste of eternal life: amazing, radical, life-changing grace. Millions of lives have been changed by award-winning author Philip Yancey's startling exploration of grace at street level. Grace is the one thing the world can't duplicate, the healing force we need, and the key to transforming a broken world. In this revised and updated edition of his personal and provocative book, Yancey offers true portraits of grace's life-changing power. These stories, set in the midst of life's stark realities, evoke such questions as: If grace is God's love for the undeserving, how do I get it? How well are we dispensing grace to a world that knows far more of strife and unforgiveness than it does of mercy? Can grace make a difference in the midst of such atrocities as the Nazi holocaust, and how can it withstand the brutality of hate? With powerful stories, rich theology, and practical suggestions, Yancey challenges us to become living answers to a world that desperately needs to know, What's So Amazing About Grace?