The Cross and the Prodigal by Kenneth E Bailey

The Cross and the Prodigal by Kenneth E Bailey

Preaching Magazine Year's Best Book for Preachers

Where is the cross in the parable of the prodigal son?

For centuries, Muslims have called attention to the father's forgiveness in this parable in order to question the need for a Mediator between humanity and God. In The Cross and the Prodigal, Kenneth E. Bailey--New Testament scholar and long-time missionary to the Middle East--undertakes to answer this question.

Drawing on his extensive knowledge of both the New Testament and Middle Eastern culture, Bailey presents an interpretation of this parable from a Middle Eastern perspective and, in doing so, powerfully demonstrates its essentially Christian message.Here Bailey highlights the underlying tensions between law and love, servanthood and sonship, honor and forgiveness that grant this story such timeless spiritual and theological power.

Kenneth E. (Kenneth E.) Bailey (1930-2016) was a well-known Middle Eastern New Testament scholar and lecturer. He was the Canon Theologian of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, and he was an ordained Presbyterian minister. His works include Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, The Good Shepherd, Open Hearts in Bethlehem: A Christmas Play, and The Cross and the Prodigal Son. He has written over 150 articles in English and Arabic. Bailey lived and taught in seminaries and institutes in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Cyprus for forty years.

He taught New Testament and was the chairman of the Biblical Department at the Near East School of Theology in Beirut for twenty years, where he also developed and led the Institute for Middle Eastern New Testament Studies. Bailey was also a member of the Jerusalem-based Ecumenical Institute for Theological Research's faculty. Bailey lectured and taught in theological colleges and seminaries throughout the world, including England (Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol), Ireland, Canada, Egypt, Finland, Latvia, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, and Jerusalem. He taught Bible at Columbia, Princeton, and Fuller Seminaries, as well as at conferences and continuing education activities in the Middle East, Europe, and North America.