What is the parable of the prodigal son about?

Short answer

It is a story Jesus told about a son who wastes his inheritance, comes home in shame and is welcomed by a father who runs to meet him. It shows how gladly God receives sinners who repent, and it exposes the self-righteous older brother, who resents that grace.

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the best-known stories Jesus told (Luke 15:11–32). “Prodigal” means wasteful, and the younger son certainly was. But the story has three characters, and commentators agree that the father and the older brother matter just as much as the son who left.

Why Jesus told the story

Luke records what prompted it.

Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
Luke 15:1–2 · King James Version (1769)

Tax collectors gathered taxes for the Roman treasury, and “sinners” were people the Pharisees regarded as lawbreakers. Albert Barnes notes that by eating with them Jesus showed He did not despise them, while His critics refused to believe He received them in order to do them good. John MacArthur calls the charge that He receives sinners the key to the three parables that follow.

Jesus answers with a shepherd who finds a lost sheep (Luke 15:3–7), a woman who finds a lost coin (Luke 15:8–10) and a father who gets back a lost son. Each story ends in joy. William MacDonald sums up their point: God delights when sinners repent and takes no pleasure in the pride of those who will not admit they are lost.

The story in brief

The younger of two sons asks for his share of the inheritance while his father is still alive.

And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
Luke 15:11–13 · King James Version (1769)

Commentators read the request differently. MacArthur and Warren Wiersbe see it as almost the same as wishing his father were dead. Barnes and Adam Clarke point out that in the ancient world a son could sometimes claim his portion early, so the request itself was not unheard of. Either way, Matthew Henry names the root of it: “It is bad, and the beginning of worse, when men look upon God’s gifts as debts due to them.”

The money runs out, famine comes, and the young man ends up feeding pigs. Barnes calls this the deepest degradation a Jew could imagine, since pigs were unclean. Then he comes to his senses.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
Luke 15:17–19 · King James Version (1769)

He plans a confession and goes home, hoping only to be taken on as a hired worker. But his father sees him first.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
Luke 15:20 · King James Version (1769)

Barnes draws the contrast: the son comes slowly, weighed down by shame, while the father runs. Wiersbe adds that in the East it was unusual for an older man to run. The father does not even let the son finish his speech about becoming a servant.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
Luke 15:22–24 · King James Version (1769)

MacArthur explains the gifts: the best robe, kept for an honored guest; a ring, a sign of authority; and sandals, which slaves did not usually wear. All of them say the same thing: this is a son, not a servant.

The older brother

The parable does not end with the feast. The older son comes in from the field, hears the music and refuses to go in.

And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

Luke 15:28–30 · King James Version (1769)

He calls the returning son his father’s son, not his own brother, and Barnes sees in this great contempt. MacArthur notes that the complaint shows he had served for what he could get, and that this self-righteousness, though more respectable than his brother’s sins, offended the father just as much. Yet the father goes out to him too.

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

Luke 15:31–32 · King James Version (1769)

Henry, Barnes, MacArthur and MacDonald all see the older brother as a picture of the Pharisees and scribes who grumbled at Jesus, and the younger son as the tax collectors and sinners. Some interpreters have read the two sons as Jews and Gentiles, but John Gill rejects this, because the parable answers the complaint of verse 2. Jesus does not say whether the older brother went in. The question is left with the listeners.

What the parable teaches

First, it shows what repentance is. Henry calls the son’s coming to himself the turning point of a sinner’s conversion. The son sees that he has sinned against heaven, that is, against God, and against his father, and then he gets up and goes home.

Second, it shows the grace of God. MacArthur says the running father pictures God as a Savior who longs for sinners to repent and rejoices when they do. The son is restored before he has proved anything. Paul says the same: God showed His love in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8), and we are saved by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8–9). See also What is grace?

Third, it warns against the older brother’s spirit. Henry traces it to pride, self-preference and ignorance of one’s own heart. A person can stay close to the Father’s house and still not share the Father’s joy.

So the parable invites in two directions. If you are far away like the younger son, the way home is open. If you are more like the older son, the Father comes out to you as well. Jesus came to look for the lost and bring them home (Luke 19:10).