Reflective Bible Study

As we continue through Luke’s gospel, we come to a chapter in Luke that contains three powerful parables. While it might be tempting to try to tackle all three parables in one episode, attempting this would definitely be too much for our typical time constraint – at least to cover these parables like how I would want. Because of this, we will focus on the first two shorter parables for this episode, and leave the longer, more famous parable for our next episode.

All three of these parables are shared because of what Luke describes in the first two verses of this chapter. Let’s read how Luke sets the stage and the first two parables Jesus shares. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 15, and we will read from the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us:

¹ Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. ² Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

³ So He told them this parable, saying, ⁴ “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? ⁵ When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ⁷ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

⁸ “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

When reading these two parables, I cannot help but see the amazing theme that God values sinners and He intentionally seeks them out. Jesus shares both these parables, as well as the one for our next podcast episode, because some religious leaders began accusing Jesus of associating with the lowest people on the rungs of society. Both the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin conclude with Jesus sharing a summary statement telling us that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

However, as I read these two parables, I am amazed by how Jesus frames certain details in each. In the parable of the lost sheep, I am amazed that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the open pasture to go looking for the lost sheep. For a long time, the picture that was in my head about this parable was that the ninety-nine left behind were safe in the pen and the shepherd was out looking for the only sheep that was not safe.

But this is not what this parable, or the similar parable in Matthew, describes. Luke’s parable of the lost sheep describes the shepherd leaving the sheep in the open pasture, while Matthew describes the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains.

Regardless of where the ninety-nine sheep were left, the picture is that these sheep are together in community, and in a relatively safe place, but not in a place where they were trapped. While the shepherd was searching for the lost sheep, another sheep was free to wander away, and the group of sheep was vulnerable to predators.

It is interesting, because I wonder if this reflects how some people feel about church. I suspect there are people who feel God is silent or absent from church and they conclude that He is not present or interested. This parable does appear to suggest that God’s focus is on rescuing those who are trapped in sin more than on those who are in the church.

However, looking at the details in this parable suggest a different group God seeks after. This other group may be an even more challenging group. The lost sheep God seeks after is not one who has never been a part of the herd of sheep. The lost sheep is one who was a part of the herd, but then who left. The lost sheep represents someone who was part of God’s family, but who decided to leave.

In this parable, God leaves the big group in search of rescuing a single person who left Him. This is a powerful metaphor. One could say that God leaves the church in search of those who have fallen away from the church!

While I suspect that shepherding was not a single person activity, and that the remaining sheep did have others with them, nothing directly said in this parable suggests this. I wouldn’t be surprised if multiple people are involved with herding sheep, but I really don’t know anything about shepherding.

However, God doesn’t stay away from church, He instead brings those He rescues back into church. In order to do that, He must come back to church periodically at the very least. This then suggests that if God is bringing people back into church through your spiritual community, then you are doing something right in God’s eyes!

However, let’s shift our focus and look at the second parable, which is the parable of the lost coin. When reading this parable, I began to wonder how much this coin was actually worth. I probably wouldn’t be alone in saying that if this coin was worth only a few dollars, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. However, if this coin was worth a significant amount, then I might be like this woman who doesn’t rest until she has found this coin.

Doing a little bit of research, I conclude that this coin likely was worth about 4 days worth of work to those people who Jesus was speaking to. In the context of this parable, this woman had 40 days of work saved, which would be about two months worth of income using our current five-day workweek as our measure. With two months of income saved, this woman realizes that almost an entire week of income has been lost. If you lost a week’s worth of income, I suspect that this would prompt you to search your house for it. I don’t know about you, but when I frame the lost silver coin this way, I would be very interested in finding it.

However, one other way of looking at this silver coin that isn’t directly suggested in the parable is that these ten coins represented a set. These ten coins might have had more significance than simply just the dollar value they were worth. They could have been this woman’s last gift from a now deceased family member, or they could have been a set of coins that held significance in her eyes. With this framing, the lost coin isn’t valuable because of its literal value, but this coin is valuable because the set of coins would not be complete with it missing.

In a similar way, I believe that God looks down at His people and if one of His people wanders away, He earnestly seeks after them to bring them back. This is because when Jesus returns, God knows His set, or we could say His family, wouldn’t be complete without every one of His people. God wants you in His family, and because of what Jesus gave for us on the cross, we can be accepted into God’s family and become part of those who He ultimately redeemed out of sin!

Whether we intentionally wandered away like the lost sheep, or whether we drifted and discovered we were missing when God shows up in our lives, be sure to accept God’s invitation back into His family and be ready to return when He shows up in our life!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first in your life and choose to stay with God or return to Him if you have drifted away. It is much more common to slowly drift away from God than to drop everything and leave Him. While we might switch church families, or move to different areas, these changes don’t mean we are abandoning God. However, if you have been without a church community for a while, I would suggest you seek one out that matches what you believe church should be like. For our spiritual lives to be healthy, we need a strong personal foundation on God and a relational connection with others!

To help keep your personal foundation on God strong, continue regularly praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and study, discover how to open your heart to the Holy Spirit and let Him into your heart and mind. With the Holy Spirit’s help, if you have not found a spiritual community you can connect with, He will help you do so!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or wander away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

For the last several podcast episodes, we’ve been focusing in on Jesus’ arrest, on Judas Iscariot the betrayer, and on Jesus’ arrest scattering Jesus’ disciples. However, before going any further into Jesus’ trial and condemnation, there is one additional prophecy or Old Testament connection that is worth looking at which ties Jesus’ earlier ministry together with His condemnation and crucifixion.

To set the stage for continuing Jesus’ path towards the cross, let’s take a look at not just one, but two psalms that both share a detail with Jesus’ life and ministry.

The first psalm we will look at was included in the introduction, and this is psalm 69. Reading from the New American Standard Bible translation and starting in verse 1, the psalmist writes:

¹ Save me, O God,
For the waters have threatened my life.
² I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me.
³ I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God.
⁴ Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head;
Those who would destroy me are powerful, being wrongfully my enemies;
What I did not steal, I then have to restore.

In this psalm, we find a powerful idea that connects with Jesus’ life and ministry. When the psalmist writes that he has enemies who hate him without a cause, and that these enemies are wrongfully his enemies, this not only would likely include the psalmist himself, but these descriptions are also equally applicable to Jesus. While Jesus did share some harsh words to many groups of religious leaders, the only people who were truly against Him were those who were more interested in gaining or keeping status and influence among their peers.

It is also interesting in my mind that this psalm includes the challenge that the one writing is expected to restore something that they did not steal. In an interesting parallel, Jesus came to pay a penalty for something He did not do, and to ultimately restore something He did not break.

Moving to the other psalm that we will draw our attention to, this one is included earlier in the psalms. Reading from Psalm 35, starting in verse 17, the psalmist asks:

¹⁷ Lord, how long will You look on?
Rescue my soul from their ravages,
My only life from the lions.
¹⁸ I will give You thanks in the great congregation;
I will praise You among a mighty throng.
¹⁹ Do not let those who are wrongfully my enemies rejoice over me;
Nor let those who hate me without cause wink maliciously.
²⁰ For they do not speak peace,
But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.
²¹ They opened their mouth wide against me;
They said, “Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it!”

In both this second psalm and in the earlier psalm, we have the set of ideas shared which include a group of people being wrongfully enemies, and people who hate others without having a cause or a reason.

Jumping forward into the New Testament, earlier on during the night Jesus was betrayed, while Judas Iscariot was assembling the soldiers and mob to come arrest Jesus, Jesus was sharing a powerful message with His disciples as they were finishing up their meal and heading towards the garden.

In John, chapter 15, starting in verse 18, Jesus tells the remaining eleven disciples:

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. ²⁵ But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’”

In this message to His disciples, Jesus draws their attention, as well as our attention, onto the truth that when people hate Jesus’ followers, they actually, perhaps unknowingly, hate Jesus as well. When people hate Jesus, they also, regardless of whether they would admit to it or not, hate God.

I will be the first to say that this is a very strong message. This might even be too strong of a message. The reason for this thought is that as I look out at the broad Christian culture, there are plenty of “representatives for Jesus” that do, say, and act in ways that would be easy to hate. Christianity is made up of sinners, and included under the banner of redeemed are many who have less than reputable backgrounds.

However, while it would be easy to discount Jesus’ strong message because of the technical nature of those He invited to follow Him, it is worth pointing out two details that are not often focused on.

The first detail is that there is a difference between those who actually follow Jesus verses other people who claim that they are followers while not actually following. A different way to frame this is by asking a question that might sound a little uncomfortable: If one of God’s angels were to ask Him to point out who was reflecting His love and Jesus’ character in the world today, would you be included in the list of those doing His will and reflecting Jesus to others?

This question is challenging because it pushes past simply praying a prayer or making a one-time declaration. While prayers and declarations for Jesus are important, Jesus’ disciples didn’t say they would follow Jesus while doing their own thing. Instead, Jesus’ disciples left everything they would otherwise be doing in order to follow Jesus and learn what He wanted them to do. Becoming a disciple changed the disciples’ lives in a very clear and distinct way. If following Jesus hasn’t changed our lives, it begs the question: Are we really following Jesus?

However, there is another detail worth drawing our attention to, regardless of where we fall on the uncomfortable question about following Jesus. This second detail is looking at who Jesus was talking to when He makes this uncomfortable statement about those hating His followers really hating Him. Jesus did not make this statement to crowds of average people; Jesus made this statement to His most devoted disciples.

This tells us that when we are dedicated to Jesus, and seeking to do His will while also sharing the great news of what He accomplished with others, if other people reject us, we can understand and frame their rejection as them really rejecting Jesus. A different way to say this idea is that we should not take their rejection personally. Instead, we can write off the rejection that comes our way as others not rejecting us, but that they rejected the person we represent.

In a similar way to an ambassador representing the country they came from, and if that ambassador was rejected, it would be understood to be one country’s rejection of another. When we live our lives as ambassadors or representatives of God, when we are rejected, we can frame the rejection we receive as others simply rejecting a messenger God tried to send their way.

Jesus has challenged His disciples and His followers to be representatives for Him in our world. While that means that some people will choose to hate us, while other people may simply write us off, we are called to remember that Jesus faced hostility and rejection too. When people reject us because of our faith, this rejection extends all the way to a rejection of God, and this rejection says more about the person doing the rejecting than it says about the One they rejected.

Jesus came to redeem sinners, and as we follow Him, grow closer to Him, and share Him in the world around us, remember that Jesus loves humanity, and that He came to redeem sinners and to extend grace to those who don’t deserve it.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life. Understand that when following Jesus, rejection will likely come into your life at some point if it hasn’t come already. Resolve today, to frame the rejection you receive because of your faith in an impersonal way, specifically as the other person rejecting Jesus. Resolve to continue growing closer to Jesus and to better reflect His light and His love to those He brings into your life.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God. Through the Bible, God gives us a picture of Himself, and we are able to see His love through the grand story of Jesus and of history.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!