PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP (CONTINUED) -- MATTHEW 18:12-14; LUKE 5:4-7

 

I once attended a church where the pastor delivered a sermon on the Good Samaritan at least once a year. But there is really nothing excessive about that practice since Jesus' stories are so open-ended that they continually challenge readers to draw out new insights and applications in them. So I am using that as an excuse to put together this third posting on the story of the lost sheep recorded twice in the gospels (For your information, the first two posts are titled “Parable of the Lost Sheep: Luke 5:4-7” and “Is Anyone So Righteous That They Don't Need to Repent?”) The following are rather random, but still pertinent, comments gleaned from the scholarly literature that were not included in those earlier essays.

Donahue explains: In their transmission the parable received different applications and interpretations...parables originally addressed to opponents are directed to the church (Matt. 18:1, 12-14; Luke 15:15:2-7).”

Cochran: “Many scriptural texts run counter to utilitarian reasoning. The dominant witness of the NT is that all humans are equal and all life is worth preserving...Jesus interacts with social outcasts (Matt. 9:10-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32; 19:1-10; John 4:7-39), treats children with special care (Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17), and praises the actions of a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one that is lost (Matt. 19:10-14; Luke 15:3-7). The idea that the good of some persons can be sacrificed for the sake of a greater number of people is at odds with these texts' emphasis upon care for all persons.”

“In the parable of the Lost Sheep (15:4-7) the description of the shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep (15:4) echoes Ezek. 34:11-12, 16...As Jesus' audience consists of the Pharisees and scribes who complain about Jesus welcoming and eating with sinners (15:2), he challenges them to understand themselves as shepherds. The Pharisees' and scribes' lack of concern and mercy for sinners echoes Ezek. 34...The emphasis on joy in heaven over the repentance of one sinner in 15:7 may echo Ezek.18:23: 'Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the LORD God, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live?'” (Pao and Schnabel)

“When people receive the word (Mt 13:20) and discover the kingdom (Mt 13:44), they respond with joy, just as the shepherd rejoices when he finds a lost sheep – a transparent metaphor for the Father who does not want any of 'these little ones' to be lost (Mt 18:12-14).” (Green)

“God deals mercifully with the lost; everything depends upon that. There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Lk. 15:7, 10, 23). Indeed the whole of Lk. 15 with its parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son presents Jesus calling upon men to rejoice with him over the lost returning to the Father (15:6,9,32).” (Beyreuther and Finkenrath)

Goetzmann says that “the predominantly intellectual understanding of metanoia as a change of mind plays very little part in the NT. Rather the decision by the whole man to turn round is stressed. It is clear that we are concerned neither with a purely outward turning nor with a merely intellectual change of ideas...However absolute the call to repentance, it was a message of joy, because the possibility of repentance exists. Because God has turned to man.., men should, may and can turn to God. Hence conversion and repentance are accompanied by joy, for they mean the opening up of life for the one who has turned. The parables in Lk. 15 bear testimony to the joy of God over the sinner who repents and call on men to share it.”

Murray disagrees somewhat with Goetzmann, at least in his definition of what a 'change of mind' means. “In the New Testament the terms 'repent' (metanoeo) and 'repentance' (metanoia) refer basically to a change of mind. It is all-important to note this significance. For repentance consists in a radical transformation of thought, attitude, outlook, and direction. In accordance with the pervasive Old Testament emphasis and with what appears also in the New Testament, repentance is a turning from sin unto God and His service.”

Lunde says, “Jesus' demand for repentance stresses God's covenantal grace, for he is its fulfillment and embodiment...Appropriately then, joy and celebration are often associated with repentance in Jesus' proclamation, evincing the grace which is its context (Matt. 13:44; 22:1-10; Luke 5:27-29; 19:6,8...)”

Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: “In the NT the figure of one hundred vividly conveys the sense of a complete number. In Jesus' parable of the lost sheep (Mt 18:12-14; Lk 5:4-7), when one sheep out of a hundred wanders off, the number of those remaining seems lacking and incomplete by comparison...To grasp the power of a hundred as a image of completeness, one need only consider hypothetical variations on the parable. If Jesus had told a story of a man with ninety-nine sheep who loses one and is left with ninety-eight, the sense of completeness in the numbers would be substantially less, as would the rhetorical power of the parable.”

Conversely, another article in the same source states: “The quality of being 'one'...expresses the uniqueness of human beings. The worth of a single person in the eyes of God is expressed by the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Lk 15:1-10). Here God's preference for the unimportant, the sick, the sinner is stressed even more than in the OT.”