9-Week Study & Discussion Guide

The Prodigal So

by Henri Nouwen·72 discussion questions

Lead your group with the discussion already prepared: a reading plan, thoughtful questions, and printable handouts for everyone.

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Week 1 — FreeRead the Preface and Introduction of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–32.

Discussion question your group will work through:

1.Nouwen describes being transfixed by a reproduction of Rembrandt's painting pinned to a friend's door. What was it about the image — particularly the father's hands on the son's shoulders — that refused to let him go? Have you ever had a moment when a piece of art, music, or literature broke through your ordinary defenses and touched something deep? What was that like?

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About This Study Guide

At a glance: this is a 9-week study and discussion guide for The Prodigal So by Henri Nouwen, with 72 questions organized by reading assignment. Week 1 is free to read, with no card required.

Henri J. M. Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son began with a moment of arrested attention: standing before a poster of Rembrandt's massive painting, Nouwen found he could not move on. That encounter became a years-long meditation on Luke 15:11–32 and on Rembrandt's luminous rendering of it — a meditation that eventually drew Nouwen to sit before the original canvas at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The book that emerged weaves together three threads: the parable itself, Rembrandt's painted interpretation, and Nouwen's own relentlessly honest autobiography. The thesis is both simple and demanding — that each of us is, at different moments, the younger son who has squandered his inheritance in a far country, the elder son who has stayed home but remained spiritually distant, and finally the father whose vocation is to become a person of boundless, grieving, rejoicing compassion. The journey the book traces is from lostness, in all its forms, toward the place where God has chosen to dwell: within the human heart opened wide enough to receive and to give love.

This study guide is designed for use over ten weeks — one week per major section of the book, plus a final week of review — and works equally well for individual journaling and for small group conversation. The suggested pattern for each week is: read the assigned section of the book slowly and attentively, sit quietly with the Rembrandt image (a high-resolution version is freely available online and worth printing or bookmarking), journal your responses to two or three of the discussion questions before your group meets, and then bring your written reflections into conversation with others. The closing prayer for each week is meant to be prayed aloud together, or read slowly in solitude as a way of placing the chapter's insights before God rather than simply analyzing them.

By the end of this guide, readers will have done more than study a parable. They will have been invited — as Nouwen himself was — to locate themselves inside Rembrandt's painting, to recognize the particular way they are lost, and to hear the specific word of welcome that calls them home. Expect this book to be personal. Nouwen makes no attempt to hide behind academic distance, and the questions in this guide follow his example: they press toward the concrete, the honest, and the transformative. The goal is not mastery of a text but homecoming to a Father.

Week 1: Introduction — A Sudden Stop Before a Painting

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Read the Preface and Introduction of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–32.

Nouwen's journey into this parable began not in a library but in a corridor, when a reproduction of Rembrandt's painting stopped him cold — consider what image, word, or moment has ever arrested you in a similar way.

1.Nouwen describes being transfixed by a reproduction of Rembrandt's painting pinned to a friend's door. What was it about the image — particularly the father's hands on the son's shoulders — that refused to let him go? Have you ever had a moment when a piece of art, music, or literature broke through your ordinary defenses and touched something deep? What was that like?

2.From the very first pages, Nouwen frames this as a book about homecoming — not a homecoming to a place, but to a Person. How does he distinguish between the search for a geographical or relational home and the deeper longing he is describing?

3.Nouwen is remarkably transparent about his own restlessness and loneliness as the context for his encounter with the painting. Why do you think he begins with autobiography rather than theology or art history? What does this choice tell you about the kind of book — and the kind of journey — he is inviting you into?

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Group handout: The Prodigal So

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9-Week Schedule

  1. Week 1Introduction — A Sudden Stop Before a Painting8 questions
  2. Week 2Part One — The Younger Son (I)8 questions
  3. Week 3Part One — The Younger Son (II)8 questions
  4. Week 4Part Two — The Elder Son (I)8 questions
  5. Week 5Part Two — The Elder Son (II)8 questions
  6. Week 6Part Three — The Father (I)8 questions
  7. Week 7Part Three — The Father (II)8 questions
  8. Week 8Epilogue — Becoming the Beloved8 questions
  9. Week 9Review & Reflection8 questions

Week 2: Part One — The Younger Son (I)

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Read Part One of The Return of the Prodigal Son (chapters on the younger son's departure and life in the far country). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–16.

1.The younger son's request — "Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me" — was, in its cultural context, tantamount to saying, "I wish you were dead." How does Nouwen use this cultural background to deepen our understanding of what the son is actually doing? Why does the severity of the offense matter?

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Week 3: Part One — The Younger Son (II)

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Read the remainder of Part One (chapters on the younger son's return and the father's reception). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:17–24.

1.The son prepares a speech: "I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants." Nouwen suggests this speech reveals that the son still does not fully understand who his father is — he is proposing a transactional relationship rather than a filial one. Do you think his desire to be a hired servant reflects genuine humility, or something else? What does the difference matter?

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Week 4: Part Two — The Elder Son (I)

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Read the first section of Part Two of The Return of the Prodigal Son (chapters on the elder son's resentment). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:25–30.

1.The elder son is in the field when his brother returns — he has been working faithfully. He hears the music before he knows the reason for it. Nouwen notes that the elder son's complaint is not without justice: he has been obedient, and the returning rebel is celebrated. Why is the elder son's grievance so understandable — and yet, in Nouwen's reading, so spiritually dangerous?

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Week 5: Part Two — The Elder Son (II)

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Read the remainder of Part Two (chapters on the father's compassion toward the elder son and Nouwen's personal reckoning). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:31–32.

1.The father leaves the feast to come out to the elder son — just as he had run to the younger son. Nouwen emphasizes that the father's compassion is not exhausted by one child's return; it flows equally toward the son who is lost in a different way. What does it mean to you that God pursues the religiously lost with the same urgency as the morally lost?

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Week 6: Part Three — The Father (I)

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Read the first section of Part Three of The Return of the Prodigal Son (chapters on becoming the father). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:20–24; also Romans 8:14–17.

1.Nouwen's friend and fellow priest suggested to him that he was not primarily the younger son or the elder son — he was the father. Nouwen resisted this at first. Why did he resist it? What made the call to become the father feel presumptuous or even frightening?

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Week 7: Part Three — The Father (II)

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Read the remainder of Part Three of The Return of the Prodigal Son (chapters on the father's compassion, forgiveness, and joy). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:22–32; 2 Corinthians 5:18–20.

1.Nouwen writes that the father's forgiveness is not the cancellation of a debt but the restoration of a relationship — it is love that has not stopped. How does this distinction between debt-cancellation and love-restoration change the texture of what we mean when we say we have been forgiven?

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Week 8: Epilogue — Becoming the Beloved

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Read the Epilogue of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–32 (re-read in full); 1 John 3:1–2.

1.Nouwen ends by describing his return from St. Petersburg changed — not by new information, but by sustained contemplation. He suggests the painting continued to work on him long after he left it. What in this book has continued to work on you, surfacing in unexpected moments? What image or phrase has stayed with you?

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Week 9: Review & Reflection

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Re-read any passages that marked you most deeply. Sit with Rembrandt's painting one more time. Luke 15:11–32.

1.Which of the three figures — the younger son, the elder son, or the father — most surprised you as you worked through this book? Did the figure you identified with at the beginning remain the same by the end, or did something shift?

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About the The Prodigal So guide

How many weeks is the The Prodigal So study guide?

This study guide covers The Prodigal So in 9 weeks, with week-by-week discussion questions, reading references, and closing prayers for each session.

How many discussion questions are included?

The complete guide includes 72 discussion questions across 9 weeks — an average of 8 questions per week, designed for group conversation.

Can I use this guide for a book club?

Yes — the questions are written for group discussion and work well for small groups, book clubs, church studies, and couples reading together.

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