by Jen | Aug 26, 2025 | 11-32, DISO studies, Luke 15
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Everywhere I look, I see the signs of summer ending and normal church, school, work schedules resuming. Friends, I hope you’re in a church family and looking forward to beginning or returning to an in-person Bible study if you can. It’s so important to surround ourselves with Christian community these days!
Last Week’s Work
MY PERSONAL TREASURE
I felt the Spirit directing my attention to the statement that the younger son was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found (v32). In addition to being repeated (v24), this is also the last statement of the story and the chapter, so I believe it had special significance to the original audience. And it also describes the situation that led to my salvation. Definitely a wow! moment for me!
WHO (CHARACTERS)
- He (v11), this is the man telling this story. I scanned the beginning of Chapter 15 and most of 14 before confirming this is Jesus (Luke 14:3). That search also revealed Pharisees and scribes were the original audience for this story (14:2). And I noticed this is the last of three similar stories Jesus told these men, one featuring a lost sheep (15:1-7), another a lost coin (15:8-10), and our study text, about a lost son (15:11-32). Wow! again!
- Next, the father of two sons (v11) is identified. He apparently owned enough property that each son would have an inheritance (v12). He also had both hired servants (v17) and bondservants (v22).
- The younger son is mentioned next. He demands his share of the property, leaves the country, and recklessly blows through all his assets. When a famine grips that land, he hires himself to a local pig farmer (vv12-15). In the son’s misery, he realizes he’d do better to go home and work for his dad (vv17-19), so he returns, humbly asking to work as a servant (vv20-21).
The father, full of compassion, meets him on the way, and directs the servants to bring clothing and a ring (which I’m pretty sure indicates reunion with the family). The father also orders a celebratory feast (vv20, 22-23).
- Then, the older son comes home from work and discovers the party for his irresponsible brother. In his anger, he refuses to join (vv23-28). When his father comes out to him, he complains he never even got a goat, while his wasteful brother gets the fattened calf (vv28-30). The father reminds him he’s always had access to the calf and everything else, and the celebration is purely about a beloved son returning from being dead and being lost (vv31-32).
WHERE (LOCATIONS)
Though I noted several locations—a far country (v13), the father’s home (vv18, 20, 25), which became the setting for the celebration (v28), and the field (v25)—the one that stands out to me is where the son was when his father saw him and felt compassion. In v20, it says he was still a long way off. I think this detail hints that the father didn’t just happen to glance up and see his son. Instead, he was purposefully looking and hoping his son would return.
WHEN (TIMEFRAMES)
I also noticed several timeframes, but didn’t feel the Spirit calling out any of them specifically. They are:
- Not many days – how long after getting his inheritance the younger son left to squander it (v13).
- The famine in the far country happened when [the younger son] had spent all his inheritance (v14).
- The younger son headed for home when he came to himself (vv17-18). I suspect this means he regretted his prior, foolish decisions.
- The father wanted the servants to fetch the robe, ring, and shoes quickly (vv22-23).
- The older brother realized there was a party going on as he drew near the house (vv25-26), and boy, did the sparks fly!
- The eldest son complained he’d served his father many years (v29) without reward.
- The father said his older son was always with him (v31).
Dig-In Challenges
Here’s my study plan this week:
- PRAY the prayer I wrote last week before I study.
- MINE: Look for repeated words or phrases in this passage and check for synonyms or pronouns that might refer to emphasized concepts, too.
- MINE: Locate any special statements (blessings, commands, curses, prayers, promises, requests, and/or warnings) in the passage.
- MINE: Note any lists (3 or more similar items) mentioned in Luke 15:11-32.
Remember, you can download this printable summary of the DISO process for more specific instructions. I hope you’ll check in with me next week!
GO TO WEEK 4 >
by Jen | Aug 19, 2025 | 11-32, DISO studies, Luke 15
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back! Here’s how I felt the Holy Spirit leading me in Steps 1 and 2 this past week:
Last Week’s Work
MY PRAYER
Keeping in mind the model we learned about in our last study, I crafted this:
Father God, You are the highest and best Father of all, and I believe the father in this passage from Luke is patterned after You. Thank You for welcoming us into Your Word. Open our eyes, minds, and hearts to Your Holy Spirit’s leadership, and bless our efforts to see, understand, and apply this text in our lives. I ask this in Jesus’s mighty name. Amen!
HUH? and WOW! MOMENTS
These are my questions and discoveries from surveying the passage:
HUH?s
- Who is the he who tells this story (v11)? To whom? I’m pretty sure Jesus is the storyteller, but I want to remember to verify that and learn about his audience in Step 4.
- The footnote to v15 says, hired himself out to could also mean joined himself to. What are the implications of a Jewish man joining himself to someone from another country?
- How could the father recognize the prodigal son while he was still a long way off (v20)? Maybe because he (the father) was looking hard for him (the son), thinking (hoping?) he’d come back?
- The father describes the son as dead and lost but then that he lives and was found twice (vv24, 32). What might he mean?
WOW!s
- This time, the Holy Spirit directly pointed out it was the man’s younger son (v12) who wanted his inheritance early. I never really noticed that before.
- I think pigs were considered unclean by first century Jews— this son must have been desperately hungry to work with them (vv15-16)!
- At least the son was humbled enough that he didn’t expect his dad to welcome him back as a son (v19).
- And to his credit, he didn’t take advantage of his dad’s joy; he stuck to the terms he’d decided for himself before going home (v21).
- Related to my first wow! above: the father’s reaction is a surprise to me. Didn’t he realize his reaction might (and, in fact, did) alienate the older, loyal son (vv22-24)?
Dig-In Challenges
If you’re studying this passage with me, listen to the Spirit’s guidance this week and choose one of your (or my) Huh? or Wow! topics to dig into more deeply. Going forward, I’ll refer to this as your personal treasure. It can be something you noticed in your study, one of the items I’ve listed above, or anything else the Holy Spirit laid upon your heart about this passage. As the study progresses, we’ll consider everything in the study text but gradually narrow our focus to the verse(s) that prompted that Huh? or Wow! reaction you’ve decided to study.
- PRAY for the Spirit to direct your focus for the remainder of this study. In your journal, record the personal treasure He identifies, along with any verse(s) relating to it from the study text.
- MINE: Read Luke 15:11-32, focusing on the three factors setting the stage for this story. Note anything the Spirit emphasizes about the characters involved, any locations mentioned, and any timeframes discussed.
I hope you’ll check in with me next week!
GO TO WEEK 3 >
by Jen | Aug 12, 2025 | 11-32, DISO studies, Introduction, Luke 15
Thank you for joining me in this eight-week study of the prodigal parable!
This is another of the Restoration studies I’ve previously done online. I’m repeating them because the original studies were lost when a previous website host took down my site a few years ago. I could just repost those earlier versions, but most of them were completed as the Spirit worked with me to fine-tune the DISO study method, so the framework I used then doesn’t match the current five-step approach. We’re not missing anything (in fact, it’s more robust now than it ever was!), but based on feedback I’ve received, it’s easier to work through now—and that’s a good thing, right?!
Let’s Study Luke 15:11-32!
This week, I’ll begin by praying and surveying Luke 15:11-32. If you want to study on your own with me, here’s what I recommend you have ready:
- A copy of Luke 15:11-32, plus access to the entire Gospel of Luke.
I like to refer often to the text I’m studying and sometimes make notes on it, so I copy the passage from blueletterbible.org, paste it into a word processing program like Google docs or MS Word, change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a pdf of my Scripture study sheet with lots of room for doodles and notes.
- A study journal.
We’ll spend the next seven weeks immersed in and learning about Luke 15:11-32. And the work we’ll do each week builds on what came before, so plan to record at least some highlights from your work over the coming weeks. I’m old-school and like the pen-and-paper method for journaling my studies, but it’s okay if that doesn’t work for you. If you don’t have time to write out or type your notes, consider dictating them into a notes app, or recording audio files, instead.
Or, you may decide to just read the posts I publish here. That’s good, too, because you’ll become familiar with the process and see how the Spirit speaks to my situation. You may find that’s enough to make it worth your while to keep checking in with me, even if you can’t dig into Luke 15:11-32 yourself this time.
Dig-In Challenges
So, here’s how I’ll be studying this week:
- PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer with which I’ll start each of my weekly study sessions. If you’ve studied with me before, you know I usually just adapt a previous prayer. Though I’ve almost memorized the bones of my prayer, I still write it in my study journal to remind me to pray it each time I open the notebook.
- SURVEY: Then I’ll read Luke 15:11-32, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these and later ask the Spirit to direct me to the one I should dig deepest into right now.
If you’d like more information about these steps, check out this printable summary of the process I’ll be using over the next eight weeks. Or, you can always reach out to me with your questions through my contact page or at [email protected].
I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you, along with relevant snippets of my previous Lord’s Prayer study from 2020, so I hope you’ll keep checking in with me each week!
GO TO WEEK 2 >
by Jen | Aug 5, 2025 | 5-15, DISO studies, Matthew 6
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Thanks for checking in for the final post for our 2025 Matthew 6:5-15 study!
Last Week’s Work
LESSON(S) LEARNED
I reviewed my notes from the last six weeks and came away with this: while temptation and trials are inevitable and part of God’s plan to grow my faith, I’m not expected to battle them alone. He commands me to ask for His help! From other studies I’ve done, I can see it’s part of a bigger strategy that also includes renewing my mind and wielding the sword of the Spirit like Jesus did. I’m so grateful for this model prayer!.
CONVICTION
Here, the Spirit asked me to consider how I am succumbing to temptation when I should be following Jesus’s commands and moving forward anyway, all the while relying on Him to supply the discipline to not give up. This week, I felt convicted about the book (yes, the same one I’ve talked about for years now!). I finished a full-length rewrite earlier this year but quietly laid it aside (again!). I believe the Spirit is now prompting me to make certain changes to the format and get it ready for release soon.
CORRECTION
Though it might seem a stretch, the passage from this study that corrects me is v6: But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. In context, Jesus was counseling us not to practice our faith in ways that show off how pious we are. I think that’s because, by doing so, we negate the praise that God alone deserves (v9), heaping it on ourselves and tainting our Christian witness.
This week, though, the Spirit helped me recognize a related manipulation the evil one has used to quash my mission to help women go deep into God’s Word with DISO. It’s self-doubt that surfaces each time I resolve in my own strength to publish a book about this process. In my mind I hear him whisper, it’s not ready! What will people think of you, Jen, if you publish a book that isn’t perfect? Everyone will know you’re not qualified to share this. It’s better not to risk it.
But God’s Word says when I pray, He will reward me. And He has!
ACTION PLAN
This morning before I finished this post, I laced up my walking shoes and started listening to one of my favorite podcasts (Your Best Writing Life with Linda Goldfarb). The episode featured a publication format I didn’t know about: short-form e-books. As I listened, I began to consider different ways to get my project started again. Then I realized, as Matthew 6:8 says, God knew what I needed before I even asked Him! Thank You, Father! This time, my plan is to stay alert to the evil one’s temptation to abandon the book project. When (not if!) I hear those doubts in my mind, I plan to ask God to help me ignore the whispers and lies and listen for help determining the next step to take. With God, all things are possible to [her] who believes (Matthew 19:26, Mark 9:23)!
Our Next Study
Join me next week as I kick off the fifth study in my Restoration series featuring Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the Prodigal Son. Hope to share more with you then!
by Jen | Jul 29, 2025 | 5-15, DISO studies, Matthew 6
NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back! I hope you’ve had a chance to dig a little deeper into this passage this week. Here’s what the Spirit has revealed to me from my studies:
Last Week’s Work
CROSS-REFERENCES
I was surprised at the number of cross-references available for the phrase, “lead us not into temptation!” As I reviewed them, I noticed:
- God allows us to be tested throughout the Bible.
From the beginning, when the serpent conned Eve into eating forbidden fruit (Genesis 3).
God tested Abraham, asking him to offer Isaac, his only son, as a sacrifice in Moriah (Genesis 22:1-2). Abraham and Sarah waited decades for Isaac, the child of the promise (Genesis 17:19), so the temptation to fail that test had to have been indescribable! Yet Abraham’s statement to Isaac reveals temptation-resistant faith: God will provide for himself the lamb… (Genesis 22:8).
And God also tested the Israelites similarly in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 8:2, 8:16).
God used a trial (a thorn… in the flesh) to keep Paul humble (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).
- Prayer is a God-approved strategy against temptation.
In addition to Jesus’s recommendation here in His model prayer (Matthew 6:13), we also see three times when He coached Peter, James, and John to pray that [they would] not enter into temptation. Three times they snoozed instead (Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42). I wondered if that lack of prayer later contributed to Peter’s succumbing three times to the temptation to deny Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75).
- God won’t allow Christians to be tempted beyond their ability, there will be a way out. (1 Corinthians 10:13).
- God knows how to rescue the godly from trials (2 Peter 2:9). He can relieve any trial, but as indicated above, He may choose to use it to grow us, instead.
OTHER TRANSLATIONS
When I used biblehub.com to access multiple translations of Matthew 6:13, the New Living Translation (not one of my regular checks) caught my eye:
And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
This is different! While the other Bibles ask to not be led or brought to temptation, trial, or test, NLT seems to accept it’s going to happen (as my cross-references surely indicated!) and asks instead to be strengthened against its pull away from God.
COMMENTARY
I compared my thoughts about the work I’ve done in this study with eight commentaries on v13 and didn’t find any areas of disagreement. That said, I really liked J.W. McCarvey’s perspective on three parts of the overall prayer (vv9-13) I discovered in The Old & New Testament Restoration Commentary:
- Invocation (where previous prayers often addressed God as Lord), Jesus, Son of God, introduced the concept of addressing him as Our Father);
- Three petitions about our relationship with God (honoring His name, bringing His kingdom on earth, and doing His will); and
- Three Petitions about our needs (provision of daily bread, forgiveness of sins, and avoidance of temptation).
Dig-In Challenges
This coming week, let’s wrap up our study of Matthew 6:5-15 and align with what we’ve discovered in this passage:
- PRAY: Read the prayer created in Step 1.
- ALIGN: Review our study notes and other work, focusing specifically on what we’ve learned in this study.
- ALIGN: Then, considering those “lessons learned,” think about how the Spirit has convicted us through this study. In other words, where has He shown us misalignment between what we’ve discovered and how we practice our faith?
- ALIGN: Next, let’s look to God’s Word for guidance to correct that misalignment. This is often—but not always—a verse from the study text or from one of the cross-references.
- ALIGN: And finally, reflect on how we can change our thoughts or actions to align more closely with what we’ve discovered here. To really make this work, I’m committing to changing something and do my best to act on that commitment every day for at least three weeks.
That may seem like a lot to consider in one week. If you’re working with the Spirit, remember it’s okay to work at your own pace. Don’t worry about where you are—just do what you can when you can. I know the Lord will bless any time you spend in His Word!
GO TO WEEK 8 >
