He spoke this parable to the Pharisees and scribes when publicans and sinners drew near to hear Him and the leaders murmured that He receives sinners and eats with them. It answers their scorn and self-righteous pride and reveals that His mission is not to condemn and destroy but to recover what was lost, because sinners are the very ones who need a Saviour. It begins the picture of the Good Shepherd's seeking love, showing that salvation comes through God first seeking the helpless, wandering sinner who cannot find the way back by himself. Like a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine and searches at great cost until He finds the one, He tenderly carries it back without reproach, and heaven rejoices when it is restored. That search is the pattern for His people, who must actively seek the erring and perishing with pity, tenderness, and patient love rather than waiting for them to return or driving them away with harshness.
Setting and Audience
Luke 15:3 introduces the parables Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and scribes after all the publicans and sinners drew near to hear Him and the leaders murmured that He receives sinners and eats with them. It is His direct answer to their complaint about welcoming sinners, setting forth the parable of the lost sheep to show that He seeks the lost and that heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. It also introduces together the lost sheep, the lost silver, and the prodigal son as teachings of mercy and forgiveness given in response to that murmuring.
The publicans and sinners were following Him and listening with rapt attention and living interest to His teaching, while the murmuring scribes and Pharisees felt only condemnation in His pure presence. Their charge that He receives sinners and eats with them was meant to create the false impression that He loved association with those who were sinful and defiled and was insensible to their wickedness. Yet even the vilest found escape from the pit of sin in His presence, for His welcome greeted them as children estranged from the Father's house but not forgotten by the Father's heart.
The verse introduces the parable of the lost sheep and then carries its lesson still farther by the lost coin and the prodigal son, with the story of the woman with ten pieces of silver spoken immediately after the lost sheep. Together these show God's pitying love for sinners who have strayed, whom He does not abandon in misery though they turn away and follow their own course, dealing especially with those who once knew the Father's love but were led captive by temptation. They declare that His mission to the world was not to make miserable, condemn, and destroy, but to recover what was lost, which is why He did not exclude Himself from sinful people, since they were the very ones who needed a Saviour.
The verse shows a message of mercy varied to suit the hearers, spoken earnestly and with grace poured upon the lips to convey treasures of truth in the most attractive way to the weary. It was spoken with tact to meet prejudiced minds and win attention, and with definite purpose to bring eternal realities to view, reaching the heart through the imagination by an illustration taken from daily life. The shepherd and the sheep is simple yet full of wonderful depth of meaning for immortal truth, so that afterward whenever the hearers saw a shepherd and sheep they would recall His words and His lesson would be constantly repeated.
Rebuke and Mission
This parable is Christ's direct answer to the murmuring of the Pharisees and scribes because He received sinners and ate with them. It rebukes their pride and self-righteousness and their contempt for publicans and sinners who gladly listened to Him. It exposes them as just in their own eyes, feeling spiritually perfect with no need of repentance. Their rejection of His welcome of sinners reflects that scorn, displeasure, and self-righteous opposition to His lessons of humility, compassion, and love.
It lays rebuke on the leaders of Israel for neglecting publicans and sinners who needed all compassion and tenderness. In veiled illustration it sets before them the faithful work of true shepherds that God required of them and that they had failed to do. As leaders they should have been doing a shepherd's work, manifesting mercy and love and uniting with Him in His mission, and their refusal proves their claims of piety false.
The parable reveals the truth hidden in their own accusation that He receives sinners and eats with them. His mission to the world was not to make miserable, not to condemn and destroy, but to recover what was lost. That is why He did not exclude Himself from sinful people, for they were the very ones who needed a Saviour. He receives and seeks sinners rather than approving their sin. Even the vilest have escape from the pit of sin in His presence, for He greets them as children estranged from the Father's house but not forgotten by the Father's heart, and their misery and sin make them only the more the objects of His compassion, so that the farther they have wandered the more earnest is His longing and the greater His sacrifice for rescue. Their charge was meant to create the false impression that He loved association with the sinful and defiled and was insensible to their wickedness, but His answer declares that God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
It was given as a quiet, veiled rebuke rather than an open one that might have closed their hearts. It used a symbol they could remember. Though many rejected the reproof and its force was not fully appreciated at the time, it brought conviction to some. After His resurrection and ascension those convicted received the Holy Spirit and joined the disciples in the seeking work outlined in the lost sheep. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as they saw the ingathering of the Gentiles and the envious anger of the Jews, they better understood the lesson of the prodigal son and could enter into the joy that it was meet to make merry and be glad because the lost son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.
The parable answers discontent over the class with whom He mingled by placing God's own estimate upon man. God gave Jesus, heaven's best gift, to humiliation, poverty, self-sacrifice, contempt, rejection, and death for the sins of the world in order that man, His lost sheep, might be saved, and for this costly sacrifice profound gratitude is demanded from every soul. That estimate covers every nation, kindred, and tongue, white or black, for each bears God's image and is purchased by Christ's blood, so to show contempt or hatred toward any nation reveals Satan's character. All heaven is interested in man's ransom, with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels ascending and descending to minister to heirs of salvation. They come not to denounce and destroy but as messengers of mercy to cooperate with the Captain of the Lord's host and with human agents who seek to save the lost, commanded to encamp round about those who fear and love God.
Seeking Love Portrayed
The verse opens a picture of the Good Shepherd's seeking love, showing God's care for every creature in Christ's work of seeking people perishing in sin. Like a shepherd who risks his life to search for a straying sheep, God seeks those who have wandered, revealing tender patience, perseverance, great love, mercy, goodness, and truth. The shepherd seeks the one lost sheep until he finds it, carries it close in love, and rejoices with heaven when it is recovered.
Salvation comes through God seeking the sinner, not through the sinner first seeking God or earning God's favor by repentance. God reveals His love to sinners so that they may repent, taking the first step and seeking them even while they rebel against Him. That seeking gives courage to sinners who are despondent and distrustful, showing that each wanderer is precious to God.
As a wandering sheep is helpless and cannot find its way back, so a soul wandered from God cannot return by itself but must be searched for, found, and brought back. The wilderness is the darkness, confusion, bewilderment, misery, fright, and spiritual loss of being unable to find the way, rushing farther and farther from the gates of heaven and the Shepherd's care and protection. That flight comes through Satan's deceiving and deluding power, even in a soul who has known and enjoyed the love of Jesus and the guardianship of the compassionate Shepherd yet has left pleasant pasture.
The lost sheep wandered from the fold and was lost in the wilderness or upon the mountains. It knows that it is lost, has left shepherd and flock, cannot recover itself, and pictures those who realize they are separated from God and are in a cloud of perplexity, in humiliation, and sorely tempted. This differs from the lost coin, lost in the house close at hand yet recoverable only by diligent search, picturing those lost in trespasses and sins with no sense of their condition, estranged from God without knowing it, with souls in peril while unconscious and unconcerned and indifferent to God's claims. Yet both are objects of pitying love to be sought for and brought back to God.
The verse shows pitying love that does not abandon wanderers in misery though they turn away and follow their own course. He is kind and tender toward those exposed to the tempter's and the enemy's influence. He deals especially with those who once knew the Father's love but were led captive by temptation, and He brings back to the Father's house every wanderer who is willing to return.
If a lost sheep is valuable enough to be searched for until found, a soul straying from God is of far greater worth and calls for search. Publicans and sinners will be welcomed by Christ, so that even that class could not say that no man cared for their soul. Their misery and sin make them only the more the objects of His compassion, greeted as children estranged from the Father's house but not forgotten by the Father's heart. The farther they have wandered the more earnest is His longing and the greater His sacrifice for their rescue.
The true Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and searches for the one, facing every difficulty at risk, hardship, expense, and suffering without hesitation. He goes into the dreary wilderness enduring storm, cold, and roughness of the way, because the sheep must be searched for and found and brought back to the fold. When He finds it He does not reproach it but tenderly lifts it, takes it in His arms, and carries it close in love back to the fold. The pure, sinless Redeemer thus bears the sinful and unclean rather than leaving the weak or driving them onward.
Finding the lost brings Him joy, and shepherd and angels rejoice when it is restored. The shepherd's search and joy show that heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. That rejoicing is more than over ninety-nine who need no repentance or who consider themselves just.
Duty to Seek Others
The search for the lost sheep is the pattern for God's people, and the church and everyone who knows the truth must actively seek members and souls perishing in sin who have strayed from Christ's fold. The erring, the weak, the trembling, and even those who have left the truth are called to return, and they are to be sought out rather than waited for to return on their own. To ignore them or leave them uncared for does not show the divine nature, and failure to seek them leaves guilt that must be acknowledged.
Christ has given to every man his work of seeking the lost, requiring those who know the truth to cease criticism and go to unbelieving neighbors and friends with the last message of mercy and warning. Every worker is to bear in mind the labor put forth for the one gone astray, to use the talent of influence, and to study how to approach men and women. The truths of God's Word are to be presented in a tactful, simple way that awakens interest in those without an intelligent understanding of its requirements. Searching as those who must give an account, workers will soften their speech and bring the disposition under the control of the Holy Spirit for success in finding the lost sheep, and a thousand times more might be done for the cause of God in this way.
Many more of the lost could be recovered if others labored for them, for the parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver teach of the lost recovered through earnest effort. Christ's way of working to reclaim sinners is to seek those in danger and to rejoice when they are rescued, and following that plan with loving compassion is the successful way to reclaim the erring. The lost are to be sought with winning invitations, pity, tenderness, forgiveness, love, loving patience, compassion, and encouragement. They are to be encouraged and tenderly carried back and borne back, rather than left to Satan's temptations, left weak, driven onward, scolded, punished, cut off, or treated with harsh words, force, severe judgment, or harsh condemnation. His tender forbearance and healing are needed because if He treated people as they treat one another none would be saved, and patient kindness left unsaid can contribute to a soul being lost.
Ministers and Christian teachers bear this shepherd responsibility especially toward children and youth, devoting their energies and tender concern to finding the one who is lost. Concern for the lost should move church members to feel deeply for them and to acknowledge their own coldness and indifference and confess neglect. A stiff, unfeeling, stern attitude can hinder the return of those estranged, while loving, earnest help welcomes them back with rejoicing. The Lord brings wandering sheep into the fold and those already in the church ought to rejoice over it. The elder son means church members who have had much labor and now feel envious and jealous when labor is given to bring in new interests and baptize new believers in nearby places instead of more labor being given to them.
He spoke this parable to the Pharisees and scribes when publicans and sinners drew near to hear Him and the leaders murmured that He receives sinners and eats with them. It answers their scorn and self-righteous pride and reveals that His mission is not to condemn and destroy but to recover what was lost, because sinners are the very ones who need a Saviour. It begins the picture of the Good Shepherd's seeking love, showing that salvation comes through God first seeking the helpless, wandering sinner who cannot find the way back by himself. Like a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine and searches at great cost until He finds the one, He tenderly carries it back without reproach, and heaven rejoices when it is restored. That search is the pattern for His people, who must actively seek the erring and perishing with pity, tenderness, and patient love rather than waiting for them to return or driving them away with harshness.
Setting and Audience
Luke 15:3 introduces the parables Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and scribes after all the publicans and sinners drew near to hear Him and the leaders murmured that He receives sinners and eats with them. It is His direct answer to their complaint about welcoming sinners, setting forth the parable of the lost sheep to show that He seeks the lost and that heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. It also introduces together the lost sheep, the lost silver, and the prodigal son as teachings of mercy and forgiveness given in response to that murmuring.
The publicans and sinners were following Him and listening with rapt attention and living interest to His teaching, while the murmuring scribes and Pharisees felt only condemnation in His pure presence. Their charge that He receives sinners and eats with them was meant to create the false impression that He loved association with those who were sinful and defiled and was insensible to their wickedness. Yet even the vilest found escape from the pit of sin in His presence, for His welcome greeted them as children estranged from the Father's house but not forgotten by the Father's heart.
The verse introduces the parable of the lost sheep and then carries its lesson still farther by the lost coin and the prodigal son, with the story of the woman with ten pieces of silver spoken immediately after the lost sheep. Together these show God's pitying love for sinners who have strayed, whom He does not abandon in misery though they turn away and follow their own course, dealing especially with those who once knew the Father's love but were led captive by temptation. They declare that His mission to the world was not to make miserable, condemn, and destroy, but to recover what was lost, which is why He did not exclude Himself from sinful people, since they were the very ones who needed a Saviour.
The verse shows a message of mercy varied to suit the hearers, spoken earnestly and with grace poured upon the lips to convey treasures of truth in the most attractive way to the weary. It was spoken with tact to meet prejudiced minds and win attention, and with definite purpose to bring eternal realities to view, reaching the heart through the imagination by an illustration taken from daily life. The shepherd and the sheep is simple yet full of wonderful depth of meaning for immortal truth, so that afterward whenever the hearers saw a shepherd and sheep they would recall His words and His lesson would be constantly repeated.
Rebuke and Mission
This parable is Christ's direct answer to the murmuring of the Pharisees and scribes because He received sinners and ate with them. It rebukes their pride and self-righteousness and their contempt for publicans and sinners who gladly listened to Him. It exposes them as just in their own eyes, feeling spiritually perfect with no need of repentance. Their rejection of His welcome of sinners reflects that scorn, displeasure, and self-righteous opposition to His lessons of humility, compassion, and love.
It lays rebuke on the leaders of Israel for neglecting publicans and sinners who needed all compassion and tenderness. In veiled illustration it sets before them the faithful work of true shepherds that God required of them and that they had failed to do. As leaders they should have been doing a shepherd's work, manifesting mercy and love and uniting with Him in His mission, and their refusal proves their claims of piety false.
The parable reveals the truth hidden in their own accusation that He receives sinners and eats with them. His mission to the world was not to make miserable, not to condemn and destroy, but to recover what was lost. That is why He did not exclude Himself from sinful people, for they were the very ones who needed a Saviour. He receives and seeks sinners rather than approving their sin. Even the vilest have escape from the pit of sin in His presence, for He greets them as children estranged from the Father's house but not forgotten by the Father's heart, and their misery and sin make them only the more the objects of His compassion, so that the farther they have wandered the more earnest is His longing and the greater His sacrifice for rescue. Their charge was meant to create the false impression that He loved association with the sinful and defiled and was insensible to their wickedness, but His answer declares that God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
It was given as a quiet, veiled rebuke rather than an open one that might have closed their hearts. It used a symbol they could remember. Though many rejected the reproof and its force was not fully appreciated at the time, it brought conviction to some. After His resurrection and ascension those convicted received the Holy Spirit and joined the disciples in the seeking work outlined in the lost sheep. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as they saw the ingathering of the Gentiles and the envious anger of the Jews, they better understood the lesson of the prodigal son and could enter into the joy that it was meet to make merry and be glad because the lost son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.
The parable answers discontent over the class with whom He mingled by placing God's own estimate upon man. God gave Jesus, heaven's best gift, to humiliation, poverty, self-sacrifice, contempt, rejection, and death for the sins of the world in order that man, His lost sheep, might be saved, and for this costly sacrifice profound gratitude is demanded from every soul. That estimate covers every nation, kindred, and tongue, white or black, for each bears God's image and is purchased by Christ's blood, so to show contempt or hatred toward any nation reveals Satan's character. All heaven is interested in man's ransom, with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels ascending and descending to minister to heirs of salvation. They come not to denounce and destroy but as messengers of mercy to cooperate with the Captain of the Lord's host and with human agents who seek to save the lost, commanded to encamp round about those who fear and love God.
Seeking Love Portrayed
The verse opens a picture of the Good Shepherd's seeking love, showing God's care for every creature in Christ's work of seeking people perishing in sin. Like a shepherd who risks his life to search for a straying sheep, God seeks those who have wandered, revealing tender patience, perseverance, great love, mercy, goodness, and truth. The shepherd seeks the one lost sheep until he finds it, carries it close in love, and rejoices with heaven when it is recovered.
Salvation comes through God seeking the sinner, not through the sinner first seeking God or earning God's favor by repentance. God reveals His love to sinners so that they may repent, taking the first step and seeking them even while they rebel against Him. That seeking gives courage to sinners who are despondent and distrustful, showing that each wanderer is precious to God.
As a wandering sheep is helpless and cannot find its way back, so a soul wandered from God cannot return by itself but must be searched for, found, and brought back. The wilderness is the darkness, confusion, bewilderment, misery, fright, and spiritual loss of being unable to find the way, rushing farther and farther from the gates of heaven and the Shepherd's care and protection. That flight comes through Satan's deceiving and deluding power, even in a soul who has known and enjoyed the love of Jesus and the guardianship of the compassionate Shepherd yet has left pleasant pasture.
The lost sheep wandered from the fold and was lost in the wilderness or upon the mountains. It knows that it is lost, has left shepherd and flock, cannot recover itself, and pictures those who realize they are separated from God and are in a cloud of perplexity, in humiliation, and sorely tempted. This differs from the lost coin, lost in the house close at hand yet recoverable only by diligent search, picturing those lost in trespasses and sins with no sense of their condition, estranged from God without knowing it, with souls in peril while unconscious and unconcerned and indifferent to God's claims. Yet both are objects of pitying love to be sought for and brought back to God.
The verse shows pitying love that does not abandon wanderers in misery though they turn away and follow their own course. He is kind and tender toward those exposed to the tempter's and the enemy's influence. He deals especially with those who once knew the Father's love but were led captive by temptation, and He brings back to the Father's house every wanderer who is willing to return.
If a lost sheep is valuable enough to be searched for until found, a soul straying from God is of far greater worth and calls for search. Publicans and sinners will be welcomed by Christ, so that even that class could not say that no man cared for their soul. Their misery and sin make them only the more the objects of His compassion, greeted as children estranged from the Father's house but not forgotten by the Father's heart. The farther they have wandered the more earnest is His longing and the greater His sacrifice for their rescue.
The true Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and searches for the one, facing every difficulty at risk, hardship, expense, and suffering without hesitation. He goes into the dreary wilderness enduring storm, cold, and roughness of the way, because the sheep must be searched for and found and brought back to the fold. When He finds it He does not reproach it but tenderly lifts it, takes it in His arms, and carries it close in love back to the fold. The pure, sinless Redeemer thus bears the sinful and unclean rather than leaving the weak or driving them onward.
Finding the lost brings Him joy, and shepherd and angels rejoice when it is restored. The shepherd's search and joy show that heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. That rejoicing is more than over ninety-nine who need no repentance or who consider themselves just.
Duty to Seek Others
The search for the lost sheep is the pattern for God's people, and the church and everyone who knows the truth must actively seek members and souls perishing in sin who have strayed from Christ's fold. The erring, the weak, the trembling, and even those who have left the truth are called to return, and they are to be sought out rather than waited for to return on their own. To ignore them or leave them uncared for does not show the divine nature, and failure to seek them leaves guilt that must be acknowledged.
Christ has given to every man his work of seeking the lost, requiring those who know the truth to cease criticism and go to unbelieving neighbors and friends with the last message of mercy and warning. Every worker is to bear in mind the labor put forth for the one gone astray, to use the talent of influence, and to study how to approach men and women. The truths of God's Word are to be presented in a tactful, simple way that awakens interest in those without an intelligent understanding of its requirements. Searching as those who must give an account, workers will soften their speech and bring the disposition under the control of the Holy Spirit for success in finding the lost sheep, and a thousand times more might be done for the cause of God in this way.
Many more of the lost could be recovered if others labored for them, for the parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of silver teach of the lost recovered through earnest effort. Christ's way of working to reclaim sinners is to seek those in danger and to rejoice when they are rescued, and following that plan with loving compassion is the successful way to reclaim the erring. The lost are to be sought with winning invitations, pity, tenderness, forgiveness, love, loving patience, compassion, and encouragement. They are to be encouraged and tenderly carried back and borne back, rather than left to Satan's temptations, left weak, driven onward, scolded, punished, cut off, or treated with harsh words, force, severe judgment, or harsh condemnation. His tender forbearance and healing are needed because if He treated people as they treat one another none would be saved, and patient kindness left unsaid can contribute to a soul being lost.
Ministers and Christian teachers bear this shepherd responsibility especially toward children and youth, devoting their energies and tender concern to finding the one who is lost. Concern for the lost should move church members to feel deeply for them and to acknowledge their own coldness and indifference and confess neglect. A stiff, unfeeling, stern attitude can hinder the return of those estranged, while loving, earnest help welcomes them back with rejoicing. The Lord brings wandering sheep into the fold and those already in the church ought to rejoice over it. The elder son means church members who have had much labor and now feel envious and jealous when labor is given to bring in new interests and baptize new believers in nearby places instead of more labor being given to them.