Bible Commentaries
Luke 15

Verses 1-32

Luk 15:1-32

Commentary On Luke 15:1-32

Galen Doughty

Luke 15:1-3 - Tax collectors and sinners were people the Pharisees said could not enter the Kingdom of God because they could not meet their requirements for repentance. They were permanently unclean in the Pharisees eyes therefore Jesus should not have been fellowshipping with them and eating with them. Jesus showed them hospitality and acceptance as sinners, people who were excluded from the Kingdom in the Pharisees’ opinion. They were lost and without hope. Jesus tells the three parables of Luke 15, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the two lost sons in response to their grumbling. He wants to show them that God seeks the lost and they can still repent and be a part of the Kingdom of God. He wants to show them that the Pharisees are wrong and that their rules and legalistic religion have put them far from God. He will press them to understand that they are lost themselves and in need of repentance just as much as the tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus never denies that the tax collectors and sinners are lost. He never denies that they need repentance. He is simply trying to show the Pharisees in their religious pride that they need repentance just as much and are just as much at risk before God as the tax collectors and sinners.

Who are the sinners? We know from Luke 7 that the woman whom the Pharisees’ labeled a prostitute was a sinner. It was a broad category and covered many offenses. It was anyone whose lifestyle kept them outside the Law of Moses and being able to repent and follow the Law. It was all of those people who were part of the despised trade list of the Pharisees.

The three parables intensify toward a dramatic climax. The lost in the first is one in a hundred. In the second it is one in ten. And in the third at first glance it is one in two, but in reality it is two because both sons are lost just in different ways.

Luke 15:4-6 - There is so much going on here right from the start! Jesus first asks the Pharisees, suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. That is insulting on two fronts. First, shepherds were on the list of despised trades for the Pharisees, people who could not repent in the prescribed way and therefore were excluded from the Kingdom of God. Jesus paints the Pharisees as shepherds which would have rankled them from the first. Second, in the Middle East it is all about shame and honor. You save face at all costs. You don’t take responsibility you deflect it. No one ever loses a sheep it wanders off. Jesus tells them they lost a sheep and are responsible for it! It was insulting!!!

Further this shepherd is different. He leaves the 99 in the wilderness and goes off in search of the lost sheep. The lost sheep matters to this shepherd; in fact it matters more than the 99! The sinners and the people of the land, the uneducated in the Law, which were the vast majority of the people of Judea and Galilee, they do not matter to the Pharisees. As far as they are concerned they are lost and there is no need to try and find them or rescue them. Jesus completely shatters that attitude! Lost people matter to God, even lost sinners! The shepherd goes into an all-out search for that lost sheep just as God has come to earth in the person of his Son to seek and to save the lost!

The shepherd finally finds the sheep. When he finds it he rescues it; puts it on his shoulders and carries it home. The lost sheep belongs at home with the rest. It is not excluded it is included. The job of the shepherd is to rescue the lost sheep not write it off. The Pharisees and the experts in the Law, the religious leaders, were the shepherds of Israel. They are like the unfaithful shepherds in Ezekiel 34 who don’t take care of the flock. God chastises them for not caring for the injured, bringing back the strays and searching for the lost. Jesus is saying the same thing here. He is indicting those who should know better. God cares for all his people, even the sinners. The Pharisees should too rather than grumbling against Jesus for doing what they were not willing to do!

Luke 15:6-7 - When the shepherd gets home with his lost sheep he wants to celebrate! He calls his friends and neighbors and asks them to rejoice with him because he found his lost sheep. The overwhelming emotion of the shepherd is joy at finding that which was lost. Jesus tells us God feels joy when one sinner comes home, when he or she is found. The Pharisees were grumbling that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is celebrating because the lost are found! Who is closer to the heart of God? Jesus is already hinting that the Pharisees are not as close to God as they think they are.

Then he tells them a difficult saying full of double meaning. There is more rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents than over 99 righteous who don’t need repentance. The sacrifices in the Law were designed to help Israel remember that they were sinners in need of repentance. No one was 100% righteous. No one did not need to repent from sin. All had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is little joy in heaven over the 99 who don’t need repentance because they don’t exist! The Pharisees thought they were included in those who would feast at Messiah’s table because they had scrupulously kept the Law of Moses down to the finest detail. Jesus is telling them they are mistaken. In fact their spiritual pride has separated them from God and they are the ones who are lost in need of repentance. They do not see it. In the next two parables Jesus will intensify his case!

Luke 15:8-10 - Jesus now intensifies his case. The shepherd had lost one sheep among a hundred. The woman will lose one coin among ten.

Jesus had compared the Pharisees to a despised shepherd. Now he compares them to a woman! Women in the Pharisees’ world could not be taught the Law of Moses. In the stricter areas like Jerusalem they could not go out in public without a male to accompany them. One did not talk to a woman in public. In many cases it was very much like Saudi Arabia and other strict Muslim countries today. Jesus is putting the woman in the central place in the story, something the Pharisees would not have done and to which they would have objected.

The woman loses one of her ten silver coins. This was probably her necklace of coins which represented her dowry and her personal wealth that she could use if her husband divorced her or something happened to him. She has the coins securely fastened in a necklace so she won’t lose them, but she does lose one. She is responsible. However, in this parable it is an inanimate coin which doesn’t have a mind of its own, whereas in the lost sheep, sheep can wander off by themselves. In this parable the woman bears the responsibility for losing her coin. When she realizes she has lost it she goes on an all-out search. Her house would have been dark even in the daytime because of the small high windows in most Jewish houses. So she lights the lamp in the day to search for her coin. She sweeps the dirt floor of her home to find the coin. The home would have had only one or at most a few rooms in it so the places to look are limited. She doesn’t have to search outside her home because chances are she has not left it. Village women spent most of their time in their homes or close by them. She searches diligently until she finds the coin because it is of great worth to her. She doesn’t stop until she finds it!

When she finally finds her coin she calls her neighbors and friends together and asks them to come and celebrate with her. Village life is incredibly dull so any excuse for a party is taken. She is genuinely elated that she found her coin and now she wants to share her joy with her friends. Here Jesus uses the woman in the place of God as the one rejoicing over that which was lost.

Jesus then adds that there is great joy among the angels in heaven over one sinner who repents. The implication is the angels are joyful because God is joyful. It could also be the angels are still overwhelmed by the mercy and grace of God to rebellious sinners. It is the mystery of God’s love and the gospel that fascinates them. Notice Jesus does not mention anyone who doesn’t need to repent. In the first parable he mentions the 99 righteous and implies they don’t exist. Here there is only the lost coin. The other nine are safe and sound but aren’t righteous because they are inanimate objects. In the last parable both sons need to repent but only one does!

The shepherd and the woman are responsible for losing the sheep and the coin. They accept responsibility and seek that which was lost. They value the lost sheep and coin. The Pharisees did not value the sinners nor did they seek them or accept responsibility for them. Jesus did!

Luke 15:11-12 - Jesus continues with yet a third parable only this time it is not one in 100, or even one in 10, but two sons who are lost in different ways. The first parable had been about a shepherd, the second about a woman, this third parable will be about a father who loves his sons. Jesus will weave a story of such dramatic impact that the Pharisees will not be able to miss what he is telling them. He will press them to repent of their pride and arrogance and come and fellowship with him and with the sinners and tax collectors who were lost but now are found. It is the greatest parable he told and it may be the greatest story ever told!

A man has two sons. The younger one came to his father and asked for his share of the estate. This would never happen! Essentially the younger son is telling his father I wish you were dead so give me my money now. He is rebellious, selfish and does not care about his father or his family. He has broken his father’s heart!

In Jesus’ day in his culture the father would have beaten the son or disowned him for such an insult. The father’s honor and the family’s honor demand it. The father and the whole family will lose great face in the village because of what the younger son has demanded from his father. But this father does not beat his son. In fact he does the unthinkable; he grants his son’s request. He splits the estate and gives the younger son the share of the property that would have come to him upon his death. The other part, which by the Law is the larger part he gives to his oldest son. Because the father is still living the oldest son’s money is not yet converted into cash. The father still has disposition but the older son now has ownership. Why does the father do this? Jesus’ implication is he wants sons who obey him out of love and not out of duty. He loves his boys and wants them to love him in return. If he beats the younger son which his culture demanded, he will have an obedient son but not a loving son. His younger son will obey him out of fear and duty not out of love. He does the only thing he can that holds out the possibility that someday, somehow he can gain his younger son back. He divides the estate, granting his request and he lets him go.

At this point everyone listening, especially the Pharisees, would know that it is the oldest son’s responsibility to reconcile his brother and his father. He must make every effort to make peace between them and save the family. That is his role as the eldest son. He does not. He lets his brother go and does nothing to help his father. Jesus hints that the older brother hates his younger brother and wants him out of his life and out of the family. The more sinister hint is that he really does not love his father either because he does nothing to help soothe his father’s broken heart. Jesus does not say this, but by leaving out the older brother’s lack of response he implies that both sons are lost to their father. Both have a broken relationship with their father and with each other. Already the tension in the story is building!

Luke 15:13-16 - Soon after the break with his father and after the father has converted the property to money the younger son takes his share and leaves, going to a distant country. It is probably a Gentile country because he ends up feeding pigs. He goes to a place where he is not known where he does not have the honor or name of his family to uphold. Now he can be the center of attention, not his father and not his hated older brother. Jesus says he wastes his money on loose living. The NLT says wild living and the NIV says the same. The word in Greek is asotos, with an alpha privative in front of sotos, a related word to sotar, or savior. Paul uses it as debauchery in Ephesians 5:18. It can mean living life without care or thought of the consequences. Living like one has no care in the world or gives a thought to what may come tomorrow. It is someone who is living so much in the moment spending money on his own pleasures and desires that they don’t think about the consequences. That describes the younger son perfectly. He was selfish and wanted what he wanted when he wanted it! So he spends his money carelessly and freely being the life of the party for everyone! Now he has friends and people think he is great! But it’s all a sham and a false front because eventually the money runs out and all his so-called friends don’t lift a hand to help him when he is in need.

A famine comes and he is starving. He finally is desperate enough to lower his pride to hire himself out to a Gentile farmer to feed his pigs. He is so hungry he would even eat the pig food but no one will give him anything and he has enough pride left not to steal it. He has become a model sinner; the worst of the worst for the Pharisees. He is an unclean sinner who has rebelled against his father who is feeding pigs working for a Gentile. He has sunk as low as he can go. What will he do?

Luke 15:17-20 - He comes to his senses. The Pharisees listening must have thought it’s about time! What did the sinners and tax collectors think at this point? Did they see themselves in the younger son? He realizes even the lowest people in his father’s house, the hired servants, have food to eat and here he is starving to death. A plan begins to take shape in his head. He still does not see he has broken his father’s heart but he is at least willing to repent and come home.

He is the model sinner, a Jewish boy gone bad. Now he becomes the model repentant sinner in the Pharisees’ eyes because his plan for repentance mirrors their own standards. The Pharisees said a person must demonstrate their sincerity in order to repent. They must do something to show they are serious about repenting. The younger son will go to his father. That means he will accept his father’s beating which is totally expected by everyone listening to Jesus. Honor demands the father beat his son, to save his own face and the family’s face that has been dragged through the mud by the younger son. Along the way as he comes into the town as the beggar he now is, he will have to run the gauntlet of all the boys of the town who will spit on him and throw rocks at him and insult him before he gets to the father. He will also have to endure the derision of the villagers who will insult him and shame him. By the time he gets to his father’s house he will have been publicly shamed and will have demonstrated his desire to repent. Jesus shows he understands the Pharisees’ theology very well. He is setting them up!

The second step in the Pharisees’ repentance involves confessing one’s sin. The younger son will do that too. He will say he has sinned and is no longer worthy to be called a son. The third step involves restitution. This is where the despised trades fell short; the Pharisees believed they were incapable of making restitution. The younger son has a plan. Make me one of your hired servants. He will nobly offer to work for his father and pay all the money back even if it takes him the rest of his life! How wonderful! How noble! Jesus finally understands how these sinners need to repent! There is only one problem with the son’s plan. He has forgotten his father and the fact that he has broken his father’s heart. The father doesn’t want a hired servant; he wants a son! The first part of the parable has reached its turning point! Jesus has the Pharisees right where he wants them!

Luke 15:20-21 - The son starts out for his father’s house. Jesus now shifts the attention from the son to the father. While the young man is still a long way off, his father saw him. Why; he was looking for him, waiting for him to come home. The father stands in the place of God in Jesus’ parable.

And Jesus helps us understand the love of God for sinners. He is like the lovesick father longing for his rebellious boy to come home. He is looking for him to return, hoping for it. In contrast the Pharisees didn’t even care about the tax collectors and sinners except as people they could criticize and judge. They had already eliminated them from repentance and salvation so why care about them. God cares and cares deeply. Jesus is about to show the Pharisees that as righteous as they think they are and as close to God as they think they are they do not understand the Father’s heart at all!

When the father sees his son he is moved with compassion for him. The Greek word is splagchna, a moving in the gut. The first thing his father feels for his son is not anger or judgment but compassion. God has compassion on lost sinners and his compassion moves him to act. God acts in ways we do not anticipate nor can we even fathom because God acts on behalf of the rebellious sinner even when they don’t deserve it and can never earn it.

His compassion stirs him to do something he has never done. He runs. A man his age never runs anywhere. He always acts with dignity and gravity. To run means he would have to lift up his robes and show off his inner tunic and his legs, meaning his underwear. It would be shameful and shocking to anyone who sees it. In fact that is exactly the father’s plan. All the shame and derision, all the taunting and mocking that the son will have to endure on his way through the village until he gets to the father’s house and the inevitable beating, now is directed towards the father. He takes it all upon himself. This is the cross in the midst of the parable of the Prodigal Son. God takes all the shame and punishment we deserve upon himself in the person of Jesus upon the cross. It is unexpected, unanticipated and shocking all at once. It is overwhelming and we are left without words in the face of it. How do we respond to such love?

All our efforts to earn God’s love turn to ashes in the face of his love now understood for the first time. That describes the younger son. Jesus crafts the story in such a way that we understand that the son finally gets it. He has broken his father’s heart yet his father still loves him more than he can understand. The son finally sees there is no use trying to earn his father’s forgiveness or earn back the money. His father loves him. He runs to his son, throws his arms around him and kisses him, welcoming him home and showing his love for his boy. All his plans go by the wayside and all he can get out is his confession, which is exactly what he needs to say. Yet it is completely changed; father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Everything he says is true but he stops right there. He does not add make me as one of your hired servants. No more plan to win back the money and make restitution. Until that moment he was the model repentant sinner in the Pharisees’ eyes. Now he is the model repentant sinner in Jesus’ eyes. Jesus shows the Pharisees how ridiculous their model of repentance is in the face of the forgiving love and compassion of God. How can you win back that which you can never earn? How can you deserve what you can never deserve? Some later manuscripts add the final line of the plan not understanding what Jesus is trying to teach us. They were well-meaning but miss the entire point! God forgives us!

Luke 15:22-24 - Forgiveness for Jesus is more than just the expression of compassion and love. It is complete restoration! The father turns to the servants, who have probably breathlessly finally caught up to the old man, and says bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. The father is restoring his son to his former position. He is dressed in rags, now he will wear the best robe. This is all done not only before the servants which restores the son in the household, it is done before the whole village which restores the son’s status with all the town. Beggars don’t wear fine robes, sons do. The ring on his finger is a symbol of his status as son and heir before the whole village. Sandals are a symbol that he is a son and not a servant. Servants went barefoot, sons wear sandals. He will not be a servant, or a hired laborer, he will be a son again before everyone. This is the father’s desire. It is God’s desire too that the repentant sinner be restored to the status of son and daughter of God. The tax collectors and sinners with whom Jesus fellowshipped are being brought back into the family of Israel by Jesus. They too are sons and daughters of Abraham. We do not deserve it but God gives it to us because we have repented but more importantly because he has taken all our punishment upon himself and he loves us!

Now the father wants to share his joy over his son with everyone! He tells the servant to bring the fattened calf and slaughter it because the father is going to throw a feast right then and there. There is no greater reason to celebrate in God’s sight than a repentant sinner who comes home and finds the father’s love. Notice here it is not the villagers that want to throw the feast it is the father. In the lost sheep Jesus hints it is God who celebrates but says it is the angels in heaven who rejoice. Here there are no more pretensions. The father celebrates! He wants to throw a party and share his joy with everyone! Then he gives the reason. This son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. The sinner to God is lost and dead but now because of what the father has done, not what the young son has done, he is alive again and found. Jesus is saying the tax collectors and sinners who now follow him were dead and lost. Now they are alive and found. No wonder he wants to celebrate. God invites everyone to celebrate a lost sinner who has come home and been received into the father’s love. What were the Pharisees thinking at this moment? Jesus had just unraveled all their careful repentance theology with a shocking demonstration of the love of God and the lengths God will go to in order to welcome back the sinner. To the Pharisees it must have seemed impossible, unfair, and totally insulting. Surely God would not act like the father acts in Jesus’ story! Where is his honor? Where is the family honor? The son must pay for his own sins, that is how it works, that is how it is supposed to be! That God would pay the shame-price for us sinners was not in their thinking! I don’t think it was in the disciples’ thinking either because they did not understand the cross!

The first part of the parable ends with the line, so they began to celebrate. The Pharisees are so focused upon the shocking forgiveness of the father and the restoration of the rebellious, sinful son that they forget there is another character in the story, the older son. They are represented by him and Jesus is about to show that he too is in rebellion towards his father. He too is sinful and has broken his father’s heart though he does not know it. His sins are different but he needs repentance just like his younger brother. Jesus now moves the story towards its amazing climax and in so doing leaves off the ending and leaves the story hanging. The dramatic tension must have been incredible to behold!

Luke 15:25-27 - Meanwhile back at the ranch! Jesus now turns to the older brother. You wonder if the Pharisees had almost forgotten him. He is out in the fields doing his job of watching over his father’s and his family’s business. He is doing his duty as the oldest son. There is nothing wrong with that. But it becomes very clear very quickly that something is desperately wrong between the oldest son and his father. Their relationship is broken.

He comes near the house and hears the sound of music and dancing and feasting. He knows nothing of what has transpired and calls over one of the servants, NIV, or it can mean child or boy in Greek as well. This is either one of the house servants or it is one of the village youths hanging around the house because of all that has happened that day. It is more likely one of the boys because he says your father rather than my master. If he was a servant he would almost certainly have said my master. At any rate the oldest son learns that his hated brother has returned home and his father has killed the fatted calf and thrown a party in celebration of his return. Not only that, the party is in his brother’s honor and his father has welcomed him back into the family. Did he learn everything his father had done that day? Jesus doesn’t tell us but it is possible that the older brother now knows how shameful and shocking his father’s behavior has been before the whole village.

Luke 15:28-30 - The older brother is furious with his father! He refuses to go into the house and celebrate with his father and brother. Plus, in that culture the oldest son was expected to serve the guest of honor to show honor to that guest but the guest of honor is his hated younger brother! He is not going to serve the very one who has shamed his family and messed up the inheritance. He will not go in and please his father because he is displeased with his father. His father has shamed himself and their family before the whole village by allowing his young son to split the inheritance. Then if he had found out what had happened that day in the village and his father running through the streets to greet his lost son, it would have confirmed his worst fears. His father was losing his mind! Rather than beat his younger brother into submission he welcomes him back and shames himself before the whole village! His father needs someone to put him in his place and bring him to reason! He does not see he too has broken his father’s heart and his relationship with his father is damaged just like his younger brother’s. He refuses to go in and publicly insults his father! The Pharisees would have been shocked just like the whole village would have been shocked.

The oldest son has publicly shamed his father and caused him to lose face. Custom demanded the father go out and beat his oldest son, haul him inside and force him to do his duty! For the second time that day the father sacrifices his own pride and honor and goes out to his son to plead with him to come inside. This is Jesus with the Pharisees. He is pleading with them to celebrate with him because sinners are repenting and coming home to the Kingdom of God. The Pharisees are the stubborn elder brothers outside complaining about the father’s grace!

The older brother shows his true heart in his response to his father. It is all about him. He has been slaving for his father all these years and he has never disobeyed his orders! He sees his service to his father as slavery and duty not loving service. He admits he has obeyed but it is clearly out of duty not love to his father. Then he gets petulant saying his father has never allowed him even a young goat to celebrate with his friends. He accuses his father of keeping him in subservience and never letting him have any fun, as if his friends are truly different from the family’s friends!

He accuses his brother of blowing all their father’s money on prostitutes even though he doesn’t know anything about how the younger brother lost his money. He essentially tells his father that dividing the inheritance wasn’t real because the younger brother’s money was really still the father’s and not his own to spend. Then his jealousy and his rage at his father come out clearly as he says when this son of yours comes home you kill the fattened calf for him! I can’t celebrate with my friends yet you are celebrating with the whole village because of this sinner! Jesus perfectly frames the Pharisees’ attitudes towards the tax collectors and sinners in the jealous anger of the older brother and by doing so exposes their hard hearts towards God for all to see.

Luke 15:31-32 - The story now moves toward its climax and hanging ending. The father now tries to reason with his eldest son. He says my son, and it can be translated my boy. It is a term of affection not a title of position. You are always with me. The father acknowledges that his oldest son has stayed with his father. He has not run away and rebelled and his father appreciates that. He reminds him that everything the father has is his because even though the father is still living and has disposition over his estate yet the oldest son has ownership. All that is left that the younger son has not squandered is his.

He then gently corrects him saying your brother rather than this son of yours. He reminds him that he still has a brother who is a son of his father too. He pleads with him to come celebrate, saying we had to. Your brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. At the end of the parable Jesus returns to the theme of the lost being found.

Jesus then leaves the ending hanging. You don’t know what the oldest son does. Will he come inside and be reconciled with his brother and father and the family be reunited in love? Will he stay outside and continue to insult and hurt his father and refuse to go in? Or will he, in order to save face before the whole village beat his father because somebody deserves a beating for all that has occurred? We don’t know what happened, accept we do know. The Pharisees chose the third option and crucified their Messiah and Lord. They could not bring themselves to admit their hard hearts and that they had hurt God and were sinful and in need of repentance just like the sinners were. They refuse to repent and so to preserve their honor and what they see as the honor of God, they find a way to kill Jesus and judge him rather than admit they deserve judgment themselves. By doing so they bring down judgment upon their own heads and upon their people. The tension at the end must have been beyond belief. What did the Pharisees say and do? What did the tax collectors and sinners say and do? The rest of the Gospel of Luke gives us the answers. Truly this is the greatest story Jesus ever told and is the gospel in miniature, pointing out that there is no one who is righteous and that we all are sinners in need of a savior! And most importantly God will go to extraordinary lengths to win us back! He will pay the price for our guilt and shame himself so that we do not have to bear it.

Questions by E.M. Zerr For Luke Chapter Fifteen

1. What classes drew near Jesus?

2. Tell their purpose.

3. Why did the Pharisee murmur?

4. What method did Jesus again use in teaching?

5. State subject of the first lesson.

6. How many sheep did the man have?

7. Tell how many went astray.

8. Was it the most or least valuable?

9. How was it recovered?

10. Why neglect the ninety and nine?

11. What caused the rejoicing?

12. Were the 99 discredited by this?

13. State the cause of angelic joy.

14. Is that a disadvantage to the righteous ?

15. State the earnestness of the woman.

16. What caused the rejoicing?

17. Whom do the lost sheep and silver represent?

18. Consulting vs. 1> 2, who are the 2 sons 11th verse?

19. To which did the father give the most ?

20. Which one left home?

21. How did he live?

22. Tell how destitute he became?

23. What.employment did he obtain?

24. Tell what food he was denied.

25. What did he come to?

26. On doing so what did he remember?

27. He resolved to do what ?

28. What confession would he make?

29. And what request would he make?

30. Did he carry out his resolution?

31. Did he have difficulty seeing his father?

32. Where did they meet?

33. Describe the father’s actions.

34. And the son’s speech.

35. State the punishment the father gave.

36. What orders were given the servants?

37. Tell of the provisions for feasting.

38. What reason was given for these orders?

39. In what sense was the son dead?

40. What part of the feast did the elder son provide ?

41. Tell what caught his attention. _

42. Whose joy did they tell him about ?

43. What did they give as the reason for the joy ?

44. Why would the elder son not go in ?

45. Where did he and his father meet ?

46. State the son’s complaint.

47. Were his statements denied?

48. Did that prove he was undervalued ?

49. What guarantee did the father give him ?

50. State the father’s explanation for the joy.

51. How many parables in the chapter?

52. How many teach the same lesson?

Luke Chapter Fifteen

By Ralph L. Starling

His critics murmured, “He is eating with Publicans.”

Jesus tells a parable that explains it to them,

About a shepherd with 100 sheep in his flock.

He left them to find one that was lost.

“There is more rejoicing over one who repents

Than over 99 that need no repentance.

A woman who has 10 pence and lost only one,

She and here neighbors search just for that one.”

And then there is the “Prodigal Son”

When given his inheritance, leaves home.

Realizing he wasted his substance and was all alone

He truly repented and returns to his home.

His Father ordered a welcome feast prepared.

“The son I thought was dead has survived.”

The older son, learning what was being done,

Complained, “It’s not fair, it’s no fun.”

His father lovingly explained to his son,

“You have enjoyed all I have and that all alone.

Your brother we thought dead is now alive.

It is only right to make merry that he has survived.”