44 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
44 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
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title = "Luke 15:1–10"
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date = "2022-12-31"
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### [Read the passage.](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lk15.1-10)
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The entirety of chapter 15 has a single theme: God seeks out and saves sinners.
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We are told that the reason it comes up is that the scribes and Pharisees are
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harrumphing about Jesus teaching and accepting the company of tax collectors
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and sinners. Remember that back in Luke 14:35, Jesus said, "He who has ears to
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hear, let him hear." Now Jesus has a bunch of people willing to hear Him that
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the Pharisees didn't want to teach. Before Jesus arrived, they were stuck in a
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vicious cycle where they knew they were ungodly but didn't know what to do
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about it, and the religious leaders wouldn't teach them anything because they
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were too ungodly.
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So Jesus tells three parables to explain how God operates. I'll only talk about
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the first two today, though. In the first, He asks the Pharisees whether they
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would go out and search for their one lost sheep out of a hundred. And once
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they have found it and brought it home if they would celebrate with their
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friends that they didn't lose the sheep. In the second, He talks of a
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hypothetical woman who has lost one coin out of ten. She searches through the
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whole house with a lamp until she finds it, and then tells her friends to
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rejoice with her because she found it.
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In both stories, the people had lost something valuable. Sheep were (and still
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are) worth a good deal of money for the wool, milk, and meat you can get from
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them. The _drachma_ coin the woman lost was the Greek version of the Roman
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_denarius_, worth about a day's wage for a laborer. In both stories, Jesus
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identifies the lost thing as a sinner who has gone far from God, but is then
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found by God and repents. And when they do, there is much joy in heaven because
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they did.
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Pay attention to sequence of events in these parables! God is the one who goes
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out and finds the lost sinners, and He is the one who brings them back. The
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Pharisees were wrong to expect people to clean up their lives before deciding
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to follow God's commands better, and we are wrong to expect people to know and
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apply the truth before they have heard it.
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* * *
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Give us the grace and humility to remember that we, too, are sinners who are
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saved by grace, and if it weren't for You, we would be as evil as anyone else.
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