Chapter 15
2022 - So this chapter has three parables. I have obviously struggled some with them. After reading them six times before, I think that three parables in the same chapter ought to be closely related. They ought to all be about the same things. They ought to build on and amplify each other. As Luke presents them, they were all told at this place, in order. If we look back, Jesus had gone home with a tax collector and was eating there, when he told about the great banquet - where the Gentiles are the last ones invited. I think in 15, we are still at that same house, eating that same meal, and the "wolves" come out of their sheep's clothing, perhaps angered by the things Jesus has been saying and understanding full well that they are the "bad guys" in each and every story - the banquet, counting the cost, and salt without savor. Maybe the fact that these guys got upset at Jesus' parables is the primary clue as to who those stories are about? Can we make the religious elite, the pretenders, the hypocrites the bad guys in each one? That would mean the Jewish bad guys. I will keep that in mind as I read I suspect there is a theme that runs all the way through here. Maybe this year I will start to see that common, connecting thread that opens all these up and I can fully understand them.
The Parable of the lost sheep. Reading this the other day, I was struck by the fact that the lost sheep was part of the flock. It was the shepherd's sheep. Yet it got lost. So the Shepherd goes to find his own. I saw this as saved people straying away. But in Luke's account there is this wording:
7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. [Luk 15:7 ESV]
This way, it seems to be more about the "lost sheep of Israel". They are sheep by birth, because they are included in the covenant. But many in Israel were not faithful at all, but rebellious. Lost on purpose you might say. The part about those who need no repentance is obviously sarcasm. Those he spoke to needed salvation as badly as the lost sheep did!
2023 - Wait a sec...what if we do go with the sarcasm idea? The 99 are the other guests at the luncheon. They are the ones who "need no repentance". The one that left the fold though has stepped away from the usual, the common, the routine. And while he is out there, the shepherd finds him, and brings him into the fold, and rejoices more over him than about the ones who continued to graze in the same old traditional way. The rejoicing is about this one who has recognized a different kind of shepherd. Does that make any sense? Well....as this version of the parable is worded, you'd have to say that the reason that one wandered off is because the 99 were....yeah...I don't think this is right. At least not unless we get some corroboration from the remaining two parables. In the first parable, a man "loses" a sheep. In the second, a woman loses a coin. And then the third is the Prodigal Son. Did that father "lose" his son? If we focus on the ones who "lose" something of value, then they surely do not represent God. Whom then do they represent? We could say the religious elite of that time. But that doesn't fly because they rejoice so when the one lost is found and returned home. No. Wrong track here.
2023 - The Jews are part of the flock because of the unconditional covenant. Not so with the Gentiles. The Gentiles are lost, and when one of them is saved, there would be rejoicing? Nope. That doesn't really fly either!
2022 - So this one seems pretty straightforward. They've just accused Jesus because he is eating with sinners, and Jesus says heaven is happier over one of these sinners coming home than over all you elite religious people who are "still part of the flock". Jesus "demotes" the wonderful sinless (in their own minds) "favorites of God" to a position BELOW the Scribes, Pharisees, and Lawyers. Yes. This is pretty gloves off stuff here when you look at it that way. And I note that we don't need to bring any Gentiles into this in order to understand the parable. It is not about Gentiles, at least primarily. Jesus did not have Gentiles in view here. I think he definitely did back in 14:16-24...where they were pretty unsavory characters attending a banquet that was never prepared for them. But we don't need them in the lost sheep parable.
2023 note from Psa 119: 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. [Psa 119:176 ESV]. This is at least two places in the OT where the idea is that the lost sheep BELONGS to the flock. The lost sheep IS SAVED, but has wandered too far away, as we all sometimes do. I can't remember where that other verse is, but I will find it! Going to tag LOST SHEEP here and in Psalms 119.
The parable of the lost coin, and then the prodigal son.
2022 - The lost coin seems to be pretty much the very same thing as the lost sheep, except that with silver coins, we see that the flock that stayed with the shepherd is shiny silver, and has intrinsic value. But even so, even the "good ones", who have hearts for God, generate less joy than one sinner who repents. But I think we still have to see the lost sheep and the lost coin as being about Jews. There's no need to bring Gentiles into it.
2021 - If we make these two parables about Israel, since that is who Jesus was ministering to at this time, then it would seem to hold that all the sheep are Israel. The majority of those sheep, and the majority of the coins, remain in the fold/purse. But this is not the case during the age of the Gentiles. So the herd/purse must represent saved rather than all Israel if we are to stick with this interpretation. The herd that followed this good shepherd was mostly made up of the humble and lowly, and had barely any of the elite. Because the elite were too consumed with their own self-righteousness to seek the righteousness of God. But occasionally, now and then, one of those rebellious elitist was "recovered". A tax collector perhaps, or some other synagogue attending but entirely worldly jew. As one snatched from the fire of worldly success and self-congratulations. Yep. I think this interpretation still works. I think this is what Jesus meant. So the question is, does this parable, and the parable of the coins, even apply to Gentiles? Is there really rejoicing in heaven over one Gentile saved? Or do we need to understand that we are just lucky that the Jews are so rebellious, else we would never even have been called in the first place. We were out in the highways and byways and wouldn't even know about the wedding if the invited guests were not so ungrateful. That is surely the case Paul is making when he talks about the wild olive branch being grafted in....
So we can extend this analogy backwards and see how it applies to the banquet parable, forward to the silver coins, but does it apply to The Prodigal Son???
You can surely make a case that the first son was Israel in rebellion, and that his homecoming is the Tribulation. The Jews will turn back to God when at some point they realize en masse how far from their God they are, and they recognize that they totally missed the Messiah. So as far as the first son goes, the analogy holds just fine. What is the jealousy of the second son about in this analogy? Does it represent the resentment of the scribes and Pharisees toward the sinners Jesus associated with - and by extension the resentment of good Jews toward "death bed conversion" Jews? This doesn't seem right. But the second son surely does not represent Gentiles...though he could...For 2000 years now the Gentiles have come to God, but the Jews still rebel. Yet at the end of time, the Jews will be elevated to the very top of the heap and rule the world from Jerusalem, while the Gentiles watch from afar - or from heaven if the rapture comes early...Maybe you can make this fit, but it still has a few holes....If it is about Gentiles, I am glad to see that in vs 31, the father calls him "Son".
2022 - The Parable of the Prodigal son begins this way:
11 And he said, "There was a man who had two sons. [Luk 15:11 ESV]. Two sons. Direct descendants, so I read that as two groups of Jews. I don't see an opening to insert Gentiles into this story at the beginning. Only two groups. It is the younger son who asks for his inheritance early. Does that mean anything? The elite religious leaders would have considered themselves in a favored position with God, much more so than the every day rabble of the Jewish streets. So this younger son was in an inferior position anyway, and so he rebels, sort of pushed into rebellion by the unsympathetic elitist older brother. I had never seen that angle before. This accuses the Pharisees of being part of the reason for the exit of the less privileged. Further, as the fortunes of the younger son turn, he is shoulder to shoulder with pigs. He is supremely unclean. These elite Pharisees would have been revolted at this picture, and in their minds, they would see that younger son as beyond ever being ceremonially clean again. They would have seen him as forever unclean - almost as a leper. They would never go near this person. So Jesus, knowing this would be their attitude, says this: 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. [Luk 15:20 ESV]. This wayward son, unclean from pigs, is embraced and kissed by his father, and that BEFORE he is even cleaned up, washed, and makes purifying sacrifices to restore him to ceremonial cleanliness. His father disdains all this ritual, and embraces his son who was lost. And as in the lost sheep and the lost coin, there is celebration at the return of this one who was "dead but is alive again". In this verse, Jesus lays out what those hearing the story are thinking: 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, [Luk 15:28 ESV]. These Pharisees are angry at Jesus for associating with sinners, just as this son is angry that his brother has been welcomed home. Jesus is the Father who comes out to this older son. So Jesus is telling the Pharisees that he doesn't ONLY care about those who have gone off the deep end, but still values highly those who stayed home. They are still silver coins. And what does the son say? I kept the rules, religiously! I kind of did what I wanted otherwise, but I have the rules down pat, and I follow all the rules. Why was that not celebrated? Jesus reminds them that those who never left the fold have heaven to look forward to. That is the real inheritance - the promises to Abraham, the Kingdom of God. Of course a dead son coming home alive is reason to celebrate! It is rare, and special, and a great victory over evil. That is worth celebrating. And it does not make the "pie" any smaller in heaven for those who never left. Their reward there will reflect that they never left.
There are no Gentiles in this parable. I think this 2022 understanding is the closest to what Jesus meant so far. There is always more there than I've seen before!
This would be a good website explanation, but is far too long for FB.
2020 - One more thought. If the prodigal represents those "who have ears to hear", those who escape the curse that the Jews are under at this time, and who come home, who are saved out of this wrath, then of course the father rejoices that a few in Israel still have hearts for him. The other son represents cursed Israel, who must still go through wrath, and through Trib and Great Trib, but in the end, this other son will be with the father. The promises to Abraham as to his descendants will be made good, Israel will have the land, and rule the world and be forever with God in heaven. Much must happen to them between the time of Christ and that time, but they will make it, we all know they will make it. But a few Jews, a bare few, will get it right as we go along, and they will be welcomed as one thought lost forever who shows back up in repentance. Hmm...Maybe I finally understand this parable...Maybe.
2021 - I was thinking during prayer time this morning that the first son was given his inheritance despite the fact that his father knew he was on the wrong track entirely, that he was taking the low road, and that he might never even physically see that son again. That father knew that by giving this son his inheritance early, he might lose forever any chance to influence him in the right direction. This father risked losing this son to hell by giving him the inheritance early. But the other son...the other son stayed, and at his father's death, would receive all that his father had. This son was there for his father to influence, to teach, to enjoy. Yet this son also had problems. He was jealous of his sinful brother, maybe hating his own cowardice about not asking for his share also. He was full of bitterness and resentment. He obeyed when his father was around, but did he criticize and undermine his father otherwise? Neither of these sons was a particularly good son, but both were normal sons. And the father did not base the inheritance on his own opinion of his sons, but on tradition and practice. The father didn't try to use the inheritance to teach some last lessons to these sons after he was gone. This father did what he could to teach them while he was with them. This is all any of us can do. There also seems to be a lesson that says let your "children" go, and let them make their own decisions. At some point, it is between them and God, and we can only pray.
Also while I was thinking this morning, I thought of other father's in the Bible who's sons didn't turn out right. Aaron lost two sons because they spurned God's law. Jonathan, Saul's son, was a good man, but he most certainly was not loyal to his father, honoring David instead. Eli, as high priest, lost both his sons the same day, and then died himself because his sons were corrupt and rather than correcting them, he just ignored what they were doing. David raised Solomon, but Solomon's ultimate sinfulness and rebellion split Israel in half. Solomon's son's did little better. We don't even have the names of the sons of the 12 apostles. Not one son, so far as we know, followed the teachings of his father. I did a quick Google search and found nothing at all - as possibly from the early church fathers, who might have had apostle's sons in their churches, and found nothing. What greater blessing for service could there be than to see one's children saved? And yet we have no NT evidence about the apostles sons. I mean, at this point, is there a good son in the entire Bible? Maybe...all this is to contrast what usually happens with children to the complete and total dedication to his Father's will exhibited by Christ? So many son's got it wrong, but Christ got it right.
2026 - Three parables. In the first two, something was lost, and the owner went to great effort to find what was lost. In those two cases, the owner's effort was successful, and what was lost was restored. Neither the sheep nor the drachma made any effort at all to be found. They were the property of their owner, they were lost through some circumstance, and then they were sought and found through their owners efforts. They were restored to their owners.
But that third one is so very different. It was a person, not a thing, that was lost. The person chose to leave, to be lost. He didn't leave his owner, he left his own father. The father did not go looking for him, but let him do as he would, knowing that son was living riotously, stupidly, wastefully. But he did not go after him, did not seek to bring him home as you might a sheep or a drachma. The younger son is not "found". He chooses, on his own, to come back. He humbles himself before his father, asking to come back as a servant only, not as a son. The father gives him a robe, a ring, and a fatted calf.
When the 100th sheep came back, the other sheep did not resent it. When the drachma was found, no other drachmas resented it. But in this last one it was people, not things, and the older brother was angry. He'd stayed home, he served his master, and he received nothing for it. His younger, stupider brother rebelled and lived wastefully and with no sense of obligation, yet he was welcomed, celebrated and rewarded.
The father tells the older, offended son, that all he has will be his. The younger son will receive nothing else. His earthly "reward" is his only reward. They younger will be a servant again, once the father dies, because he will receive no further inheritance. He acted the fool on earth, received mercy on earth, and has nothing further to look forward to on earth. The older son will still receive his inheritance...on earth.
Is this reading too much into a simple parable? I don't think so. If this was simple why repeat the lesson three times, three ways. This is not just a simple lesson. There is more to it. It is not about the older son either. It is about restoration. The first two are from the POV of the owner. The last gives us the POV of all three characters. The humbled foolish son, the offended older son, and the father glad to have both sons with him.
Gentiles? No, because they were not in the house to begin with. If he were the adopted younger son that might work.
The younger would get 1/3, the older 2/3rds. Does that matter to the story? The older son was going to get twice as much anyway, not because he'd earned it but because he was the older son? is this about the older son not resenting that his brother was welcomed back because he was getting twice as much as the younger would have had anyway?
2026 - A few days later. On Sunday, the preacher talked about how we sometimes try to justify ourselves by how good we are instead of recognizing that we are all given grace that we can never earn. So once again, I thought about these parables. I saw that the older brother's biggest problem was that he thought he'd earned his way into his father's good graces. I took a lot of notes in church as I thought through that. Today, I gave the 2026 notes above and the notes from Sunday to Claude, and asked it to merge them into something that gave clarity to these three parables I've struggled with for so long. It did so, wonderfully, and added the one thing that had never occurred to me, and yet it is the one thing that unlocks the whole thing. Here is the merged version, with the extra piece. Luke 15 — The Three Parables of the Lost
I. The setting that frames all three
Verses 1-2 set the whole thing in motion: tax collectors and sinners are crowding in to hear Jesus, and the Pharisees and scribes grumble that he "receives sinners and eats with them." The three parables are not three separate lessons. They are a single, sustained answer to that one complaint. Read them apart from that grumble and they lose their teeth; read them as the reply to it and everything lines up.
II. One pattern, told three times
Each parable runs the same circuit: something of value is lost, it is recovered, and the recovery is met with joy that spills over into celebration with others. The repetition is not padding — it is escalation. The proportion lost climbs from one in a hundred, to one in ten, to one in two, and the stakes climb with it: an animal, then a day's wage, then a child.
III. Three ways to be lost
The lost differ in how they got lost. The sheep wandered off — drift, not rebellion. The coin had no agency at all; it was lost through someone else's carelessness, a pure victim. The son left willfully, fully responsible for his own ruin. Taken together they cover the whole range: however a person becomes lost — by drifting, by another's failure, or by his own rebellion — heaven's joy at the recovery is identical.
IV. How the lost are recovered
The sheep and the coin are actively sought. The son is not pursued in the same way — the father waits. But the seeking energy is not absent; it is transformed. The father sees the son while he is still far off and runs to him, a thing no patriarch of that culture would do. The son arrives rehearsing a speech to be taken back as a hired servant, and the father cuts him off before he can finish it. The robe, the ring, and the sandals are the marks of restored sonship — the ring in particular signals family standing and authority, not a servant's place. The father overturns the servant-not-son arithmetic the son carried home with him.
V. The turn no one expects
The third parable does not end at the party. It adds a second son — the one who never left and is lost anyway, standing outside, refusing to go in. His complaint, that he served faithfully and was never rewarded while this wastrel is celebrated, is the grumble of verse 2 in a different mouth. He measures the relationship in merit and payout. The father does not answer with a ledger. He answers with reassurance: "you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." The point is not who inherits what. It is that the older son's place was never in jeopardy — and the only real question is whether he will rejoice.
VI. The door left open
The parable ends unresolved. We never learn whether the older brother goes in. That silence is deliberate. It hands the question straight back to the men of verse 2: will you come in and rejoice that the lost are welcomed, or stand outside resenting it?
VII. What the passage is about
It is about two kinds of lostness — the obvious lostness of the younger son, and the respectable, hidden lostness of the older son who never left the property. The father goes out to both. Restoration is the surface theme, and it is real. But running underneath it is the sharper edge: an appeal to the joyless insider who cannot bear to watch mercy extended to people he is certain did not earn it.
But here is the life-changing lesson of these parables: The point of all this is for us each and every one to see at least a little of the older brother in ourselves. That recognition is the whole point of the parables working on us the way it's supposed to. The Pharisees in verse 2 never saw themselves in the older brother — that was their tragedy. If we do, that's not a small thing.
But don't let the swing go too far the other way. Seeing the older brother in yourself and then turning to flog yourself for it would just be the same accounting in reverse — keeping a ledger, now in the red instead of the black. The father doesn't meet the older son with rejection because of his resentment of his brother. He meets him with "you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours," and an invitation to come inside. The grumbling isn't answered with condemnation. It's answered with a door held open.
The honest read is probably that most serious, faithful, long-obedient people have an older brother living somewhere in them. The danger of staying home and doing it right for decades is exactly that it can curdle into quiet bookkeeping about who deserves what. Noticing it is how you starve it. You can't repent of an attitude you won't admit you have.
So don't just condemn yourself and leave it there. Now that you see it, you can set it down and walk into the party.