Daily Bible Reading 11th November 2026 // Luke 15:25-32
25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”
Now a word about the elder brother. Christ certainly brought him into the story to speak a word to the Pharisees, who did not know that they were sinners, and therefore would not come to Him. What we need to see is that there was another lost son in the home. He had never left home or his father's side, yet his reaction shows how far he was from his father's spirit. He was further away from him than his brother had been. How contemptuous he was of his brother's sins, and how blind he was to his own! He did not come to himself or see himself as he really was. He was full of good works (29), but his heart was miles away from his father. It is perhaps not without significance that in the story there is no sign of change in him: he remains the sullen, self-righteous one, while his brother became very different.
One final word before we leave the chapter. There is another Son in the story - the Son who told it! And there is a gospel to proclaim only because He took our place in the far country of sin, at every point standing in for us, going out into the dark night of sin for our sakes, tasting its bitter dregs - the loneliness, the woe, the desolation, in all their horror and mystery. The cry of dereliction, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' came from that far country, from God's 'lost' Son. G.K. Chesterton's words are a fitting conclusion to our study of this chapter:
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.