The Big Story: How the Bible Makes Sense out of Life by Justin Buzzard

Author:Justin Buzzard [Buzzard, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2013-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Five Life-Changing Verbs

A verb is an action word, something being done. They are words that make a story go, the backbone and force of a narrative. In verse 20, we see five verbs that change the younger son’s life forever.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

First, the father saw his son. He was looking for him. He hadn’t given up on him. He was waiting, hoping his boy would come home. He saw him because he was awaiting the first opportunity to do so. This is no small thing, considering the way the boy turned tail and abandoned the family. But the father never abandoned his hope for his son’s return.

Then the father felt compassion. This story was originally written in Greek and later translated into English. Sometimes there are potent word pictures in the Greek that tell us the story even better than English can. This is one of those times. The Greek word that is translated as “compassion” is splankna, something you feel in your guts, down in that deepest place of emotion. This is almost a physical reaction and sensation of being broken up and torn apart, but in a tender way, a sympathetic way. He responds not with bitterness, fury, or coldness. He responds with splankna, with gut-churning compassion for his son.

What the father does next is particularly startling. He runs to his son. He gathers up his long robes in his hands, and sprints. For a middle-aged man of first-century Jewish culture, this was most undignified. Children ran. Animals ran. Men did not run. But all that splankna he felt deep inside came rushing out, and he picked up the hems of his robes and ran to his boy, because dignity is no match for deepest love and compassion. As one scholar states:

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