Book Review: The Prodigal God

This is the my third book review in a row and hopefully I will continue this pattern. The book I just recently finished was The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. I'm already halfway through another book by Keller and I have no intention to stop. I actually got the opportunity almost a year ago to hear Keller speak at his current pastorate: Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. He is possibly the top authority on ministry to postmoderns. His approach thus far is genius to say the least.

One of the best things that Tim Keller does is that he takes rudimentary truths and stories that you have always heard, given you have a mild Christian background, and he expounds upon them to a point that you have never heard of before. In the literature of his that I have read so far, he does an amazing job by not going over your head with difficult concepts, which is much appreciated. There are two things that I really appreciate about his writing. The first is that he is very systematic in his approach. He starts at the beginning of a subject, passage, or concept and just simply works his way through it systematically. This makes whatever the subject matter is very easy to understand. The second thing that I really appreciated was his peculiar use of sources. Now this might sound weird at first, but the more I thought about it, it made a lot of sense. Keller would use sources like a verse from the musical Oklahoma, a lyric from Flannery O'Connor, or a quote from Nietzsche. On the outside this may seem a bit odd, but after seeing how he handles it I thought it was pure genius. He is addressing of people of all different types of status, nationality, and stage in life, and with that comes a demand to speak directly to these people. Keller does not disappoint, he is able to take sources from all different mediums to prove a central point.

Now on to the subject matter of the book. As you may have guessed Keller talks about "The Parable of The Prodigal Son", which he appropriately renames "The Parable of the Two Lost Sons". He takes this parable that we have heard over and over again and complete breaks down any preconceived notions you may have had about it, and then builds a new picture of what Christ meant through it. Now, I don't want to give too much away because I think it would be a great benefit for everyone to read it. This is what I will tell you: this book will make you look at the Christian faith in a entirely different way. It will help you understand why certain believers do one thing, while others work on the other end of the spectrum. Keller subtly redefines a lot of concepts that we have all taken for granted. I'll leave you with a very simple quote that I read in the book that I hope will wet your appetite to read it. He is writing about how Christianity isn't the same as religious moralism.

He writes "Religion: 'I obey--therefore I am accepted by God.' The gospel: 'I am accepted by God through what Christ has done--therefore I obey'".