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Osias wrote:Feels like me, only with Portuguese and posts on TAC subforum.
Osias wrote:Now that's a word that doesn't even invite porn puns, it is a porn pun.
linguoboy wrote:[flag=]en[/flag] prodigal
It's weird to list this one, since I've "known" it for most of my life, but only in the collocation "prodigal son". Since to me the point of the story is that the son's genuine contrition wins him forgiveness, I've always assumed "prodigal" meant something like "remorseful". Recently, though, someone asked me what the relationship was between "prodigal" and "prodigy" and I didn't know so I looked it up and was surprised to find that the definition of "prodigal" is actually "wastefully extravagant" (< Latin prodigere "squander").
dEhiN wrote:linguoboy wrote:[flag=]en[/flag] prodigal
It's weird to list this one, since I've "known" it for most of my life, but only in the collocation "prodigal son". Since to me the point of the story is that the son's genuine contrition wins him forgiveness, I've always assumed "prodigal" meant something like "remorseful". Recently, though, someone asked me what the relationship was between "prodigal" and "prodigy" and I didn't know so I looked it up and was surprised to find that the definition of "prodigal" is actually "wastefully extravagant" (< Latin prodigere "squander").
Yeah I used to think the same as you, but then several years ago I heard a sermon in a church where the pastor explained the meaning of prodigal, and went on to say that in some ways it that parable could also have been called the prodigal father, due to the way the father lauded on the son when he returned.
vijayjohn wrote:I never knew anyone thought the father in that story was wastefully extravagant. How extravagant could he even have been, especially compared to his son? Wasn't he just some farmer or something?
In Luke 15:17-20 (in the World Edition Bible), after the son had squandered all the inheritance and had gotten a job feeding the pigs (which I believe culturally would have been considered filthy and unclean), he comes to his senses:The request of the younger son for his share of the inheritance is "brash, even insolent"[7] and "tantamount to wishing that the father was dead."[7]
Wikipedia mentions that:But when he came to himself he said, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare, and I'm dying with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.'" He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran towards him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And then goes on to say:This implies the father was hopefully watching for the son's return.
And:The son does not even have time to finish his rehearsed speech, since the father calls for his servants to dress him in a fine robe, a ring, and sandals, and slaughter the "fattened calf" for a celebratory meal.
.On the son's return, the father treats him with a generosity far more than he has a right to expect.
Plus fatted calf and rings and robes are not things typically owned by a farmer, unless he's a wealthy one with many lands.The parable begins with a young man, the younger of two sons, who asks his father to give him his share of the estate.
dEhiN wrote:Also, I never thought of him as a farmer, or at least not a poor one, because:Plus fatted calf and rings and robes are not things typically owned by a farmer, unless he's a wealthy one with many lands.The parable begins with a young man, the younger of two sons, who asks his father to give him his share of the estate.
So the sermon I heard was about how the parable is highlighting God's love for his children, and how even when we stray, God (portrayed by the father in the parable) eagerly awaits our return, and when we return, instead of treating us as our sins deserve, shows love and give us good things. Which is why that pastor used the term prodigal with the father in the story.
vijayjohn wrote:An estate doesn't have to mean a large amount of property even though it typically does these days, and I'm not sure it's true that a farmer who wasn't all that wealthy couldn't have a fatted calf, rings, and robes. If you raise calves for meat, of course you're going to fatten them up, inasmuch as you can anyway, otherwise you wouldn't have much to eat when you killed it. And depending on how prosperous the specific area (presumably somewhere in Palestine) where the characters of this story lived was at the time, it's entirely possible that even relatively ordinary citizens had some minor luxuries at least.
But giving someone love and good things despite their sins doesn't make you wastefully extravagant, just forgiving. That's what makes no sense to me.
vijayjohn wrote:Thanks!
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