“Whoever robs their father and drives out their mother
is a child who brings shame and disgrace.”

When we opened this treasure chest we were immediately confronted with a seed that would grow to become a poisonous vine whose fruit destroys families. Luke 15:11–32, is the fullest example and explanation of this Proverb. In those verses, Jesus told us of a son who did exactly what the proverb foretold. He took his inheritance and spent it on ‘wild living’ bringing shame and disgrace on his father who in turn took the opportunity to give his son something worth much more than a material inheritance. As has already been said, his material inheritance was spent on ‘wild living’, but this other kind of inheritance from his father was of a spiritual nature- love and forgiveness. It couldn’t be spent in such a way on such things.

We then began to see Jesus, the Son and “heir of all things” Hebrews 1:2, who took the riches of God and lavished them on us, Ephesians 1:7-10. This proverb, as fulfilled by Jesus, exposed the building blocks of the Kingdom of God. In so doing, Jesus didn’t bring shame and disgrace but was “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being”, Hebrews 1:3.

Jesus fulfilled this proverb and his own parable not by ‘wild living’, but by wild loving.