Lost and found: the sheep, the coin and the two sons

Luke 15 is found only in Luke's Gospel. The chapter sits in the travel section of Luke (9:51 to 19:27), where Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and eating with many kinds of people. For the author, date and audience, see the class on Luke 1 and 2: tradition names Luke, the physician and Paul's companion; scholars date the Gospel between the early 60s and the 80s; and it is addressed to Theophilus, probably a Gentile of standing. Luke's special interest in the outcast, the poor and the sinner is nowhere clearer than in this chapter.

Verses 1 and 2 give the occasion. 'Tax collectors' were Jews who collected tolls and taxes for the Roman authorities and were widely despised as collaborators and extortioners. 'Sinners' probably covers those who were known not to keep the Law, whether by their trade or their way of life. The Pharisees and the scribes, who were experts in the Law, grumbled that Jesus 'welcomes sinners and eats with them'. Eating together was a sign of acceptance and fellowship, and the Pharisees took great care over what they ate and with whom. Jesus is not merely teaching sinners; he is sharing a table with them. The three parables are his reply to that complaint.

The details of the stories reflect village life in Palestine. A shepherd with a hundred sheep owned a modest flock, and shepherding was often regarded as a lowly occupation. The silver coin (a drachma, roughly a day's wage) may have been part of a woman's savings, and some interpreters connect the ten coins with a headdress or dowry, though the text does not say so. Feeding pigs, which the Law declared unclean (Leviticus 11:7), would have been the lowest employment a Jewish man could imagine.

Luke 15 is made up of three parables, but verse 3 says Jesus 'told them this parable', in the singular. The three stories form one argument. In each, something is lost, found and celebrated.

• The first two begin with a question that expects the answer 'Of course we would': what man among you would not go after the sheep, and what woman would not search for the coin?
• The third parable does not follow the pattern strictly, since the son is not sought but waited for, and the story ends with a party that one person refuses to join. That change is deliberate, and it moves the focus from the lost to those who object to the party.

Parables are not allegories in which every detail has a hidden meaning. They have a main point, and the context supplies it. The context here is explicit: the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes in verse 2 and the words of the father to the elder brother in verses 31 and 32. Details such as the ring, the robe and the calf contribute to the picture of welcome and are not codes for specific doctrines. Some of the fathers allegorized them, for instance taking the robe as the grace of baptism, and such readings have devotional value, but the parable's own point is clear without them.

A further rule is that a parable is not a complete statement of doctrine. This one says much about the welcome of repentant sinners and the father's heart. It does not describe how the forgiveness is secured, and the rest of Luke and the New Testament speak of that. Each parable should be allowed to say what it was told to say.

Verses 1–3

Tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus, and the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble. Jesus answers with a parable that has three parts.

Verses 4–7

'What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them' does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one that is lost 'until he finds it'? When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders 'joyfully', carries it home and calls his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him. Jesus applies it: there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance. The image of God as shepherd is familiar from Psalm 23 and from Ezekiel 34, where God condemns Israel's shepherds for neglecting the flock and says that he himself will search for his sheep. The 'righteous who do not need to repent' are probably those who think of themselves that way, as the Pharisees did, which is gently ironic.

Verses 8–10

A woman who has ten silver coins and loses one lights a lamp, sweeps the house and searches carefully until she finds it. Then she calls her friends and neighbors to rejoice. The application is the same, with 'joy in the presence of God's angels'. The pairing of a man and a woman, and of an outdoor and an indoor setting, is typical of Luke. A sheep wanders away by itself and a coin is lost by no fault of its own, and the two stories show that God's seeking covers both the willful and the helpless.

Verses 11–24

A man has two sons. The younger asks for his share of the estate. In that society an inheritance was normally given at the father's death, and to ask for it while the father lived was a grave insult, almost as if he wished him dead. The father divides his property. A few days later the son gathers everything and travels to a distant country, where he squanders his wealth in wild living. When he has spent everything, a severe famine strikes and he hires himself out to feed pigs. He longs to fill his belly with the pods the pigs eat, and no one gives him anything. The text says he 'came to his senses'. He rehearses a speech: he will go home, confess that he has sinned against heaven and against his father, and ask to be made a hired servant. He does not expect to be a son again.

The father sees him while he is still far off, is filled with compassion, runs to him, embraces him and kisses him. In the culture, an older man did not run, and the action shows how little the father cares for his dignity. The son begins his speech, but the father interrupts and orders the best robe, a ring and sandals, signs of honor, authority and sonship (slaves often went barefoot). He orders the fattened calf killed for a feast. His explanation is: 'this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' The son had been treated as dead, and his return is a coming back to life.

Verses 25–32

The elder son is in the field. He hears music and dancing and learns from a servant that his brother has returned and the calf has been killed. He becomes angry and refuses to go in. The father comes out to plead with him, as he had run out to the younger son. The elder brother's reply exposes his heart: 'all these years I have served you', he says, using the language of a slave and not a son. He speaks of 'this son of yours', not 'my brother', and accuses him of wasting the property on prostitutes. The father answers, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.' He corrects the title: 'this brother of yours', and says it was fitting to celebrate. The story stops there. Jesus does not say whether the elder brother went in. The Pharisees who listened were left with that question, and so is the reader.

Luke 15 teaches that God seeks and rejoices over the lost. The Old Testament had said that the LORD is a shepherd who gathers his scattered flock (Ezekiel 34:11-16; Isaiah 40:11) and a father who pities his children (Psalm 103:13; Jeremiah 31:20; Hosea 11:8-9). The parables bring these images together and claim that this is what God is doing in the ministry of Jesus. Repentance is real, and the son's return begins with a change of mind, but the father's welcome starts before the speech is finished. The initiative is the father's.

The chapter also states that sin is a departure from the Father's house and a loss of life: 'dead' and 'lost'. Salvation is a return to life, and heaven celebrates it. The chapter teaches too that self-righteousness is a form of being lost. The elder son has stayed in the house but is outside the feast, and his anger shows that his obedience was a kind of service for wages and not a relationship of love. This is a theme that Paul develops in Romans 2 and 10:3, and it recalls the older sibling stories of Genesis, where the younger son is often the one chosen by grace.

Jesus tells these stories to explain his own behavior. The question is why he eats with sinners (15:2), and the three parables answer that he is doing what God does. He is the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep. Luke 19:10 states it directly: the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. This is the fulfillment of Ezekiel 34, in which God promises to search for his sheep himself, and where he also promises that David, his servant, will shepherd them (Ezekiel 34:23). In Jesus the two promises meet in one person.

The father's welcome shows the character that Jesus reveals. He says elsewhere that no one knows the Father except the Son (Luke 10:22), and in this chapter he shows the Father through a story. The father who runs to meet the son is the picture Jesus gives of God, and the meal he shares with sinners is the feast of the story in action. Some scholars also read the younger son's journey as the story of Israel's exile and return, with Jesus' welcome of sinners marking the return from exile that the prophets had promised. The cost of that welcome is not explained in the parable. Luke tells it later, at the cross, including the prayer for forgiveness of 23:34 (which some early manuscripts omit), where the one who welcomes sinners bears the rejection himself.