Tim Keller’s next book, The Prodigal God, is scheduled for an October 2008 release. Pastor Keller was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book. The exchange is posted below with his permission.
CHEDIAK: How did this book originate, and why the creative title?
KELLER: When speaking to a group, I can get the essentials of the gospel across better with this parable and text than with any other. (I’m not saying that it is objectively the most important text on the gospel, only that I it has been the one that I preach the best.) The message has been in some ways the very foundation of Redeemer. Quite a number of people have been converted by it.
I don’t know that the title is all that creative. The reason it makes us think for a moment is that so many use the word ‘prodigal’ to mean ‘wayward’ when actually the word means to spend extravagantly. In the end, the father (who represents God) outspends his prodigal younger son, in order to bring him home.
By the way–the subtitle on the Amazon book-likeness (‘Christianity Redefined’) was a working subtitle that I didn’t choose and that we are not going to use. It’s triumphalistic. I hope no one is put off by it. The new subtitle will be something like ‘recovering the heart of the Christian faith’.
CHEDIAK: Why do you think Luke 15:11-32 has come down to us as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”, and might you walk us through a little bit on how you came to see it as something more?
KELLER: I don’t know why over the years our interpretation of the Luke 15:11ff parable has focused so much on the younger brother. Even if you just count the verses it is clear that his part is only about half the story. If you read the parable in its context–Luke 15:1-3–it is clear that Jesus was directing the parable at Pharisees, ‘elder brothers’, who hated Jesus warm reception of tax collectors and sinners, ‘younger brothers.’ So the fate and decision of the elder brother is the real climax of the story. (And it is a cliff-hanger–we never find out how the Pharisee/elder brother responds.) Dick Lucas once preached a sermon on this parable entitled ‘Jesus Pleads with His Critics’! In this parable Jesus is speaking to the people who will eventually kill him, yet he, through the father in the story, comes out and beg the Pharisee/elder brothers to relent and come in to the feast of salvation. I find that so moving. Dick Lucas, Ed Clowney and others showed me that the parable is about both brothers and especially the elder.
CHEDIAK: Which type of error — licentiousness or legalistic righteousness — would you say is more common in our day? Or is more perhaps each more common in certain circles?
KELLER: I wouldn’t venture to say which kind of sin is more prevalent. I wouldn’t even want to try to characterize certain ‘circles.’ Yes, big cities have a lot of ‘younger brothers’ who have left traditional parts of the world and their families for a more liberal lifestyle. But cities are filled to the gills with ‘elder brothers’ too.
CHEDIAK: If you don’t mind my asking, from which of these were you converted?
KELLER: I’ve done and been both.
CHEDIAK: Is The Prodigal God aimed at Christians or non-Christians?
KELLER: The ‘Reason’ book was aimed at non-believers, but with the expectation that Christians would learn a lot by reading it. This book is aimed at believers, but with the expectation that non-believers could read it and find it helpful and compelling.
Update: Keller chimes in on the controversy over his use of the word “prodigal” as a descriptor for God.