8-Week Study & Discussion Guide
The Return of the Prodigal Son
by Henri J.M. Nouwen·46 discussion questions
Discussion question your group will work through:
1.Nouwen first encountered the painting as a poster pinned to a friend's door. He describes being unable to move on — something in the image held him. What was it, in his telling, that the painting seemed to be saying to him at that particular moment in his life?
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About This Study Guide
Henri J. M. Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son is not primarily a book about a wayward son who comes home. It is a book about you — and about whether you are willing to let God be the father who runs to meet you. It began with a moment Nouwen could not shake: standing before a poster reproduction of Rembrandt's painting of the same name, he felt something in the image reaching into him. That encounter sent him on a pilgrimage — first to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg to sit with the original canvas for hours, and then deep into his own history of restlessness, achievement, loneliness, and longing. What he found there became this book: a sustained meditation on Luke 15 that moves through three figures in the parable — the younger son, the elder son, and the father — arguing that every person must ultimately make the journey from being a lost child to becoming a mature, compassionate father or mother in the household of God.
This study guide follows the structure of Nouwen's book, beginning with his Prologue (the story of encountering the painting) and moving through its three major movements. Each week you will be asked to read the assigned section of the book before your group meets, and to spend some time in quiet with the questions before discussing them together. Journaling your answers before the group session will help you arrive with something honest to say. There are no right answers here — Nouwen wrote this book as a confession, and the best response to a confession is another confession. Come prepared to be personal.
By the end of this guide, you will not simply understand Luke 15 better — though you will. You will have been invited to locate yourself inside the story: to name the ways you have run from home, to recognize the resentment you may carry as an elder sibling, and to hear the call to stop being a child waiting to be loved and to become a person capable of loving as the father loves. That transformation — from the far country all the way to the father's compassionate embrace — is what Nouwen believed the gospel makes possible, and it is what this guide is designed to help you pursue.
8-Week Schedule
- Week 1Prologue — A Painting That Would Not Let Go7 questions
- Week 2Part One — The Younger Son (Chapters 1–3)8 questions
- Week 3Part Two — The Elder Son (Chapters 4–6)8 questions
- Week 4Part Three — The Father (Chapters 7–9)8 questions
- Week 5Epilogue — Living the Homecoming7 questions
- Week 6Review & Reflection — The Whole Journey8 questions
Week 1: Prologue — A Painting That Would Not Let Go
Free sampleRead the Prologue of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–32 (read the full parable slowly and in full before beginning).
1.Nouwen first encountered the painting as a poster pinned to a friend's door. He describes being unable to move on — something in the image held him. What was it, in his telling, that the painting seemed to be saying to him at that particular moment in his life?
2.Has a piece of art, music, a story, or a landscape ever arrested you in a similar way — seeming to know something about you that you hadn't yet articulated? What was the experience like?
3.Nouwen describes his life at the time as marked by restlessness, a relentless search for affirmation, and a sense that he was always arriving somewhere but never quite home. Do you recognize that portrait? In what ways?
4.Rembrandt painted The Return of the Prodigal Son late in his life, after enduring bankruptcy, the deaths of those he loved, and his own moral failures. Nouwen argues that this personal suffering gave Rembrandt a depth of insight into the parable that a younger, more comfortable painter could not have had.
a.What does this suggest about the relationship between suffering and spiritual insight?
b.Have your own difficult seasons opened your eyes to things you could not have seen otherwise?
5.Before reading Nouwen's interpretation, read Luke 15:11–32 again slowly. Which character do you find yourself most drawn to — or most uncomfortable with — on this reading? Why?
6.Nouwen will argue that the parable is not simply about a lost son returning, but about the nature of the Father's love and our call to embody it. Does that feel like a natural reading of the parable to you, or does it surprise you? What do you typically take to be the parable's central point?
7.Nouwen was a Catholic priest, a Harvard professor, and a bestselling author when he wrote this book — and yet he describes himself as profoundly lost. How does his willingness to admit this shape your trust in him as a guide through this material?
Week 2: Part One — The Younger Son (Chapters 1–3)
Read Part One of The Return of the Prodigal Son (the section focused on the younger son). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–24.
1.Nouwen describes the younger son's request for his inheritance as a way of saying to the father, "I wish you were dead." That is a shocking interpretation. Do you find it compelling? What in the parable — or in human experience — supports that reading?
Week 3: Part Two — The Elder Son (Chapters 4–6)
Read Part Two of The Return of the Prodigal Son (the section focused on the elder son). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:25–32.
1.Nouwen describes the elder son's complaint — "these many years I have served you" — as the language of a slave, not a son. The elder son has been in the father's house all along but has never claimed his sonship. Does that distinction between being a slave and being a son resonate with how you have sometimes related to God or to your faith community?
Week 4: Part Three — The Father (Chapters 7–9)
Read Part Three of The Return of the Prodigal Son (the section focused on the father). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–32 (re-read the whole parable, this time watching the father).
1.Nouwen spends considerable time with Rembrandt's depiction of the father's hands — one hand appearing more masculine and firm, the other more feminine and tender — resting on the son's shoulders. He reads this as Rembrandt's visual theology: the father holds with both strength and gentleness. What does this dual quality of the father's touch suggest about the nature of God's love?
Week 5: Epilogue — Living the Homecoming
Read the Epilogue of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Return also to the Prologue for comparison. Primary Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17–20 ("Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come...").
1.Nouwen ends the book having been called to leave Harvard and move to L'Arche Daybreak, a community of people with intellectual disabilities, in Toronto. He describes this as the concrete form his homecoming took. What strikes you about that particular form? Why might living in a community of vulnerability be a fitting destination for the journey this book describes?
Week 6: Review & Reflection — The Whole Journey
No new reading this week. Return to any passages that marked you deeply. Re-read Luke 15:11–32 one final time.
1.Looking back across the whole book, which of the three figures — the younger son, the elder son, or the father — did you find yourself most resisting? What does that resistance tell you about yourself?
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