The Rock Star Father

 

Would you be surprised to learn a Biblical parable illustrated a legal concept? I know I was.

Luke 15 tells the story of a son who asked for his inheritance early. (I like to call it the Rock Star Father parable). The son didn’t want to wait—so he asked for the money he would get when his father died.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines an advancement as “[a] a payment to an heir (esp. a child) during one’s lifetime as an advance share of one’s estate, with the intention of reducing or extinguishing or diminishing the heir’s claim to the estate under intestacy laws.”

In other words, the son was asking his father for an advancement. He wanted his inheritance early, before his father died.

Let’s go back to the rock star father story. The son takes his money, then wastes it all by wild living. But times get hard for him, and he realizes his life would be better if he went to his father as a servant. So he heads home.

But the story gets better. The father sees his son coming a long way off, runs to him and kisses him. The son has a speech prepared: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But his father ignores his speech. He tells the servants to throw a party celebrating his son coming home.

The father in the story is our Heavenly Father. The father gave his son what he asked for: his money. But his most important gift to his son was something much more important: his love. Just as the father in the story loved his son unconditionally, our Father in heaven loves us the same.