The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a story that is one of the most powerful stories in the Christian faith and its greatness extends to those outside of the religion as well, it changes lives and helps you learn many life lessons. It does so by giving a story that is vague, short, and simple, making it easy for the reader to not just relate to one of the characters, but relate to them all with multiple and different lessons to be learned from each one. There are three main characters in this story and each one serves a difference purpose and you are able to learn from each one of them in different ways. This story is unique in that the reader is able to approach and also interpret it from some many different ways and is able to draw multiple conclusions from it. Overall this story has been helping people improve their lives and learn life lessons ever since Jesus told it and it will continue to do so forever.
The story starts off with, "Jesus continued:" so we know immediately that Jesus is talking to people and that he seems to be continuing to talk about something. When you end up going back to the beginning of the chapter it says; "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'" (New International Version, Luke 15:2) So now we know the audience that Jesus is speaking to, which were sinners and tax collectors who were hated because collecting taxes was against Christian belief at the time. Jesus starts off talking to these people by telling a story about a shepherd and lost sheep, where the shepherd looses one out of his one hundred sheep. Instead of him ignoring it, he leaves his other 99 sheep behind to go find the lost sheep, and when he finds it he brings it home and celebrates with his neighbor about it. Afterwards Jesus said, "there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
