Lost and found: the shepherd, the woman and the father with two sons

Luke 15 is one of the best-known chapters in the Gospel of Luke, the third Gospel, which tradition from the second century onward ascribes to Luke, Paul's physician companion (Colossians 4:14). Some critical scholars question that the author knew Paul, but most agree the Gospel and Acts are the work of one writer. Luke addresses Theophilus (1:3) and writes mainly for Greek-speaking Gentile readers, though he assumes familiarity with the Old Testament. Dates proposed run from the early 60s to the 80s, depending on whether Luke is thought to have used Mark and to have written after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The chapter is one of the clearest examples of Luke's distinctive concern with the outcast and the lost.

• The first parable has a parallel in Matthew 18:12-14, where the sheep is a picture of a little one in the church.
• The second parable, the third, and the whole framing are found only in Luke. This fits the view that Luke had access to material not used by Mark or Matthew. Those who hold that Luke used Matthew would say he developed the shepherd story and added the others. Those who hold that both draw on a common source would say the two Evangelists applied it to different audiences. Luke applies it to Jesus' own conduct.

The occasion is given at once. Tax collectors, who worked for the Roman system and were thought to cheat their own people, and 'sinners', a term for those who lived outside the Law's standards, were gathering to listen to Jesus. The Pharisees and scribes grumbled that he welcomed them and ate with them. In that world sharing a meal meant acceptance. The same charge appears in 5:30 and 7:34. Luke 15 is Jesus' answer to it, and the answer is a set of three stories told to the grumblers.

The three stories form one parable, as verse 3 says: 'Then Jesus told them this parable.' They share a pattern: something is lost, it is sought or awaited, it is found, and there is a celebration. The pattern rises from a sheep in a flock of a hundred, to a coin in a set of ten, to a son in a family of two. The stakes grow with each, and the third story breaks the pattern, because the second son remains outside the party.

Several principles guide the reading.

• First, the stories are answers to a question about Jesus' conduct, so the main point is the joy of God over the finding of the lost, and the Pharisees are invited to share it.
• Second, parables work by comparison, but not every detail is an allegory. The shepherd's shoulders and the woman's lamp are scene-setting, though the shepherd tradition of the Old Testament makes the first parable more than a farm story.
• Third, the third parable should be heard as a story with a surprising end. Jesus stops without telling us whether the older brother goes in. That is deliberate, because the listeners are the older brother.

Some scholars, N. T. Wright among them, read the younger son's story also as a picture of Israel's exile and return. The reading is suggestive and fits themes in the prophets, but Luke does not state it. The class follows the plain sense: the story explains Jesus' welcome of sinners, and the Old Testament background deepens it.

Verses 1–3

Tax collectors and sinners draw near to listen. The Pharisees and scribes murmur that this man receives sinners and eats with them. The verb for murmur recalls Israel's grumbling in the wilderness (Exodus 16:2). Jesus answers with a parable.

Verses 4–7

A man has a hundred sheep and loses one. Which of you, he asks, would not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one until he finds it? When he finds it he puts it on his shoulders, rejoicing, comes home and calls friends and neighbours to rejoice. The question assumes the hearers would do the same. Jesus then says there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. The 'righteous' who need no repentance are a way of speaking of those who think of themselves that way, and there is a gentle irony, since the Pharisees are among them.

Verses 8–10

A woman has ten silver coins and loses one. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house and searches carefully until she finds it. Then she calls her friends and neighbours to rejoice. The coin was a drachma, roughly a day's wage. A small house probably had few windows, and a lamp would be needed to find a coin on a dark floor. The woman parallels the shepherd and matches Luke's habit of pairing a man and a woman (as in 13:18-21). There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Verses 11–16

A man has two sons. The younger asks for his share of the estate. In Deuteronomy 21:17 the firstborn received a double share, so he would receive one third. The request treats the father as if he were already dead. The father divides the property. A few days later the son gathers everything and travels to a distant country, where he wastes his wealth in loose living. When it is spent a severe famine arrives and he hires himself to a citizen who sends him to feed pigs, animals Israelites counted unclean (Leviticus 11:7). He longs to eat the pods the pigs eat, and no one gives him anything. For a Jewish hearer this is the lowest point.

Verses 17–24

He comes to his senses and decides to return and say, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.' While he is still a long way off, his father sees him and is filled with compassion. He runs, embraces him and kisses him. For an elderly head of a household in that culture, running and showing such emotion in public was undignified. The son starts his speech but the father does not let him finish the request to be made a servant. The father orders the best robe, a ring for his finger, sandals for his feet and the fattened calf to be killed. Robe, ring and sandals are signs of honour and sonship, and the calf makes a feast for the village. The reason is given: this son of mine was dead and is alive, was lost and is found. They begin to celebrate.

Verses 25–32

The older son is in the field and hears music and dancing. A servant tells him his brother has come back and his father has killed the fattened calf. He is angry and refuses to go in. So the father comes out to him as he had run out to the younger, and pleads. The older son replies with a complaint: all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment, yet you never gave me even a young goat. When this son of yours comes back, after devouring your property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him. He says 'this son of yours', not 'my brother'. The father answers, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours', and corrects the wording: this brother of yours was dead and is alive, lost and found. The story ends there. We are not told if the older son goes in.

The chapter teaches that God seeks the lost and rejoices over their finding. This answers the grumblers' assumption that the holy keep their distance from sinners. In the Old Testament, the LORD is the shepherd of his people (Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34). He mourns his wayward child Ephraim and says his heart is stirred for him (Jeremiah 31:20), and in Hosea 11 he cannot give up Israel. The father in the parable reflects the same character, and the prophets' pictures of repentance and return stand behind his welcome.

It also teaches the meaning of repentance. The younger son's change is described as returning, confessing and being received, while the welcome comes before the confession is complete. Luke does not play repentance down. The sheep and coin parables end in joy over the sinner who repents. The grace is that the welcome does not wait on the son earning his place. The doctrine that salvation is by grace and received by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) is seen here in story form.

Finally, the older brother shows that self-righteousness is also a way of being lost. He is in the house, yet cut off from the father's joy. The Bible warns elsewhere about the heart that keeps the commandments outwardly and does not share the father's mercy (Jonah 4:1-4; Matthew 20:1-16).

Luke presents the three parables as Jesus' own explanation of what he is doing. He eats with sinners because this is what God is like. This is direct self-portrait. In Ezekiel 34:11-16 the LORD says he himself will search for his scattered sheep and rescue them, and that the shepherds of Israel had failed to do so. Jesus acts as that shepherd, and Luke 19:10 states it plainly: the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Jesus presents himself as the shepherd who carries the sheep home (compare John 10:11).

The father shows a heart that Jesus himself reveals and embodies. The one who welcomes sinners is the face of the Father. When Jesus eats with tax collectors, the father runs. He is also the one who in Luke 19 will go to the house of the chief tax collector Zacchaeus. The chapter does not give a full account of how sin is dealt with, and the cross is not mentioned in it. That account comes later in Luke (22:19-20; 24:46-47) and in the apostles' preaching. What it shows is the character of God that the cross expresses.