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Teaching Tip for The Prodigal God

I recently taught through the book, The Prodigal God, by Tim Keller. When teaching chapter five on The True Elder Brother (“My son, everything I have is yours”), I opened by playing the song "Highway Patrolman" by Bruce Springsteen.  The song is about an older brother who is a highway patrolman that frequently bails his younger brother Frankie out of trouble. The song portrays well a moral older brother with a wild living younger brother, expressed with the chorus:
Me and Franky laughin' and drinkin' nothin' feels better than blood on blood
Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"
I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would
Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good
The older brother believes it is a moral obligation to look after family members in a way the elder brother in the biblical story does not, pointing out the need for a "true elder brother" that only Jesus can fulfill. The biblical elder brother refuses to pursue or receive his younger brother. Springsteen's older brother ultimately must let his younger brother go after chasing him nearly to the Canadian border after Frankie had seriously injured a man in a bar fight.

Only Jesus is the true elder brother who is willing not only to go to the next country for us, but to come from heaven to earth to pursue us. 

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