LUKE 15:1 – 31: PARABLES ABOUT THE LOST

© Rosemary Bardsley 2025

In chapter 14 Luke reported Jesus speaking quite forcefully to large crowds about the cost of being his disciple, now in chapter 15 Luke records three parables Jesus told about the joy in heaven when those who are ‘lost’ are found. Only the first of these is also included in another Gospel (Matthew 18:10ff).

A. THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP – Luke 15:1 – 7

On both occasions when Jesus told this parable the context was the lack of value placed on some people by others. He used this parable to stress that God loves and cares for people who are considered insignificant and unimportant, represented in Matthew by ‘little children’, and in Luke represented by the ‘tax collectors and “sinners”’ who were despised by the Pharisees and teachers of the law who thought themselves righteous.

Representing God as a Shepherd, Jesus tells of the Shepherd leaving his ninety-nine sheep ‘in the open country’ and going off seeking for one lost sheep until he finds it. It could have been any one of his hundred sheep: he would have done the same for any of them. Jesus’ point is that God’s love is like that: each one of us is important; each the object of his special love.

Personally he comes seeking us, and when he finds us, as the parable teaches, he is filled with joy and carries us home. No harsh words. No harsh treatment for our stupidity. Just strong, gentle love that is so pleased to have found us that he joyfully bears our weight.

And in speaking in this way of God as the Shepherd, Jesus is speaking of himself. He is the ‘Good Shepherd’ who gives his life for his sheep. He came to this world to seek and to save the lost. To rescue us from our sin and its punishment he carried both our sin and its penalty, going right into the agony of death and separation from God the Father so that he could carry us out of it. On the cross he carried the weight of our sin in his own body. Rising from death to life he carries those who believe in him right into the very presence of God.

How do these texts reflect the truth contained in this parable?
Isaiah 40:11

Ezekiel 34:11 – 16, 22 – 24

John 10:11 – 16, 27

Luke 19:10

2Corinthians 5:21

1Peter 2:24, 25

The Good Shepherd comes with love; he calls us with a good purpose: to save us from our lostness, to save us from certain destruction, and to bring us safely home with great joy.

B. THE LOST COIN – Luke 15:8 – 10

In this second parable about the finding of the lost the two key elements of the previous parable are repeated:

The persistence of the search.
The joy when the lost is found.

C. THE LOST SON – Luke 15:11 – 32

The parable of the lost son is more complex than the previous two, which prepared the way for this third parable.

About the two preliminary parables:
What was the status of the sheep and the coin?

What were the attitude and action of the shepherd and the woman?

What was the end result for the sheep and the coin?

What was the end result for the shepherd and the woman?

How did Jesus apply these two stories?

Further questions:
Did the sheep or the coin repent?

Did the ‘tax-collectors and “sinners” (verse1) need to repent?

Did the ‘Pharisees and the teachers of the law’ (verse 2) need to repent?

Then who are ‘the ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent’? (verse 7)

How does a person get to be declared ‘righteous’ by God? (Read Genesis 15:6; Romans 3:12, 22.)

Here in the third parable we do not see God going out looking for the lost, but the lost one coming to his senses, that is, repenting, and returning to the Father. Here the lost is not an inanimate coin, nor an animal that lives by programmed instincts, but a human being – accountable and answerable to God, and in a state of separation from God and rebellion against God. A human being for whom being ‘found’ involves a necessary deep and internal change. That deep internal change is repentance.

C.1 About ‘repentance’
The word ‘repent’ means to change your mind. In the Bible, repentance is a change of mind from unbelief or wrong belief to belief in the one true God. Repentance is about what we believe – it is changing the focus/object of our faith. Because of the deep significance of that change in our belief there is also a corresponding, secondary, on-going change in our behaviour

How is repentance expressed in these verses?
Mark 1:15:
John 1:11, 12:
Acts 9:1, 20:

In New Testament teaching repentance involves discarding whatever ‘god’ concept we may have believed in, and putting in its place Jesus Christ as Lord. In receiving/acknowledging him, we are, in that change of belief, returning to our Creator, the Sovereign Lord, God Almighty.

C.2 Discontentment with God – Luke 15:12, 13a
Discontented with his life with his father and brother on his father’s farm, the younger son asked for his share of his father’s estate, and, having received it, left his father and his home.

His actions mirror the discontentment with God evident in Genesis 3, and the on-going discontentment with God seen in the history of Israel.

How is discontentment with God seen in these texts, and what resulted from that discontentment?
Genesis 3:5 - 7:

Isaiah 1:4:

Jeremiah 2:5:

Jeremiah 2:13:

Jeremiah 3:13:

This discontentment with God is our default human position. We would rather live with gods we have made for ourselves, either with our hands or with our imaginations, than with the One who really is God. And, having thus disposed of the true God we have also abandoned his values and his purpose for us, choosing rather to live either how we please or how our substitute ‘gods’ demand we live. We embrace either legalism or lawlessness, neither of which fits in with the true God’s purpose.

D.3 Lost – Luke 15:13b – 16
The younger son typifies all who are ‘lost’. But not all the ‘lost’ appear in such a degraded and squalid condition as this young man; the ‘Pharisees and teachers of the law’ (verse 2) who despised the ‘tax collectors and “sinners”’, were, in terms of separation from the Father, just as ‘lost’. We will see this later in Luke.

How are the ‘lost’ described in these texts?
Isaiah 1:2 – 22:

Romans 1:18 – 32:

Romans 3:9 – 20:

Luke 15:13 – 16:

As we have already seen in Luke’s Gospel, some are so lost that they do not know they are lost; they think that their darkness is actually light. So they see no need of the light (John 3:19).

But this young man in Jesus’ parable ‘came to his senses’.

D.4 The turning point – Luke 15:17 -20a
His repentance was based on his knowledge, not on his feelings.

He knew how destitute he was.
He knew that even the servants on his father’s farm were much better off than he was.
He knew that he had sinned against his father.
He knew that he was unworthy, disqualified from being received back as a son.
He also knew his father.

And on the basis of that knowledge, that truth, he reversed his former choice (to leave father and home, to discard his father’s values), and went to his father. He saw now the foolishness of his previous choices and present position, and changed his mind – ‘he came to his senses’.

How is this change of mind, this repentance, expressed in these verses?
Isaiah 55:6, 7:

Ezekiel 18:30 – 32

The young man did not return with the same mindset as when he left. He went out full of himself. He returned empty, reduced to nothing. He went out trusting in himself. He returned trusting only his father’s mercy.

D.5 The waiting father – Luke 15:20b – 24, 32
Read the verses and answer these questions:
What did Jesus say that tells us the father was watching for his son to come home?

What was the father’s feeling towards the son?

How did the father express his love?

How did the father respond to the son’s confession and request?

What did the father do to show his acceptance of his son as his son?

Why did the father want to celebrate?

Now think about these questions about this parable:
What have you learned about the attitude of repentance?

What have you learned about the compassion of God?

What have you learned about how strongly God desires you to repent and return to him?

What have you learned about the God’s mercy and forgiveness?

How does this parable enrich your understanding of Isaiah 55:6 – 9?

How does it tie in with Isaiah 61:10?

How does it affirm Zephaniah 3:17?

D.6 The other brother – Luke 15:25 -31
But the older brother did not, could not, share his father’s joy; nor did he share his brother’s joy. The reason he could not do so was that he was not living with the mindset of a well-loved son. He did not live in the joy of the total blessedness that was already his.

His father pointed out to him: ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.’ He could have taken the ‘young goat’ without asking, to celebrate with his friends. He could have done anything, because it was all his. He alone was the heir of everything. But he had not been enjoying it. So he is angry. He is jealous. He is accusatory, condemning both his brother and his father.

He was already the father’s son. But he did not have the mindset of a son. He had the mindset of a slave, living without privileges, without possessions, without freedom. And we need to ask ‘Who is Jesus talking about in the story of the older brother?’

It would be simple to conclude that Jesus was using the older brother’s attitude to refer to the attitude of the Pharisees and teachers of the law when Jesus welcomed sinners (see 15:1, 2). But that seems to be excluded by verse 31, which indicates that the older brother was a well-loved and accepted son, whereas Jesus used very harsh words against the religious leaders, which excluded them from the kingdom. John reports that he called them children of the devil (John 8:44).

It seems better to see the older brother as representing Christians who, although they have acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord, and are saved, are not enjoying their salvation. They are still relating to God on the basis of their own works, rather than knowing the peace with God and the joy that are part of our blessedness in Jesus Christ. They have not yet grasped the significance of grace and forgiveness, even though God has freely forgiven them and clothed them with the righteousness of Christ.

What did Paul say about this mindset?
Galatians 5:1 – 7

Philippians 3:1 – 9

Colossians 2:6 – 8, 16, 18, 20 – 23

Trapped in his own works-based relationship with his father the older brother, without any joy of his own, was unable to share either the joy of his father over his son’s return or the joy of his brother arising from his father’s love and forgiveness.

The challenges of this parable:
Are you an unbeliever, still alienated from God? The challenge is to repent and return home to the Father. He is waiting for you with eager and expectant anticipation, and with compassion and love that you could never imagine – waiting for you to change your mind about him and come home.

Are you a believer, already in the Father’s house because you have believed in Jesus Christ, but still do not realize the complete, comprehensive salvation that you have in Christ? Are you still living with a good works/merit mindset? Are you still riddled with guilt? Still fearing rejection? Unable to feel the Father’s joy? Unable to feel the joy that other believers seem to have? The challenge is: Open your eyes. Change your mind. Let all the love of the Father, which you already have, wash over you with its liberating joy. Don’t break the Father’s heart any longer by standing at a distance from his love, from his joy. Rather: enjoy the love and mercy which the Father has already lavished on you in Christ; live in his presence with joy as his dearly loved children, who already have, in Christ his Son, every spiritual blessing.