Luke 15:29

I serve thee. The trouble was that the older brother labored in the mood of a servant, rather than as a son. He claimed his father’s property by right, because he had earned it, and felt angry (v. 28) toward his father for not recognizing what he considered his rights as the elder son.

Neither transgressed. He rigorously observed all the outward requirements made of dutiful sons, but knew nothing of the true spirit of obedience. His service was nothing more than servile compliance with the forms of filial piety.

Thou never gavest me a kid. The Greek stresses “me” as though he said, “You never gave a kid to me.” Whether the older brother realized it or not, he was jealous of the attention being shown his brother, and probably felt that all this attention should have been his instead. He complained about never having been rewarded with so much as a “kid,” to say nothing of a “fatted calf.” No doubt there also lurked in his heart the fear that the reinstatement of his younger brother might also mean that the father would bestow a portion of the estate — which was now legally the property of the older son (see on v. 12) — upon this wastrel brother. Perhaps the older brother here implied that even the fatted calf was legally his, and that his father had no right to use it or any other part of the property without his personal consent.

Make merry with my friends. Here he seems to imply, further, that his lot in life had been a gloomy one and that he had more or less envied his brother the riotous time he had enjoyed. He had not been “merry” in serving his father; in fact, apparently he did not enjoy his father’s company, but preferred that of his “friends.”