Prodigal God, Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - The Feast of the Father

1. How is salvation ‘experiential’? (p. 106…)
2. What is the difference between believing in the abstract idea of God’s love and knowing it at the deepest level of your heart? How does this affect your daily life?
3. “(Jesus) love can become more real to you that the love of anyone else. It can delight, galvanize, and console you” (p. 108). How has Jesus’ love delighted, galvanized, or consoled you or someone you know?
4. How is salvation ‘material’? (p. 110…)
5. What does the author say on page 112 is the “inevitable sign that you are a sinner saved by grace”? In what ways can you live this truth out?
6. How is salvation ‘individual’? (p. 112…)
7. Do you agree with Martin Luther that ‘religion’ is the default mode of the human heart? In what ways can ‘religion’ be an obstacle for us as we seek to obey Christ? (p. 115)
8. “Behavioral compliance to rules without heart change will be superficial and fleeting” (p. 119). How have you found this to be true in your own experience? How then is real lasting change possible?
9. What was Bonhoeffer’s view of grace? (p. 122, 123).
10. How is salvation ‘communal’? (p. 124…)
11. “There is no way you will be able to grow spiritually apart from a deep involvement in a community of other believers” (p. 127). Is this true?
12. The book mentions four things we need in order to have a foretaste of future salvation now – prayer, service to others, changes in our inner nature through the gospel, and healed relationships that Christ can give. Which of these do you hunger for the most and why?
13. Summarize the key teachings for you from the Prodigal God book.