Luke 15:8-10--The Parable of the Lost Coin

Luke 15:8-10
English Standard Version
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The Parable of the Lost Coin
8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

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As mentioned last time, this is the second in a series of three parables that Jesus would tell about lost things.  The emphasis here is on the value of the thing lost and the rejoicing that happens when the lost thing is found and how that rejoicing may seem to exceed the value that others would put on that item.  We've already talked about the lost sheep and how that parable led to the formation of a ministry team started by me and some of my college friends.  We wanted to seek out those who belonged to Christ, but had gotten lost (which happens a lot in college) and we wanted to specifically do that on other college campuses near us because we knew the campus that we were at had a lot of people already doing this, but it did not appear that our campus had much interest in reaching out to those in their "Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria" that were in close proximity to them.  I also didn't say that it was the massacre at Virginia Tech that really spurred this to happen because we saw a call for revival and for people to get right with God and all the Christians from all the denominations and every ministry team coming together with a singular goal and focus--not to get more members and have the must fun and exciting events, but to see college students saved before it was too late.

That then grew into a desire on my part (and the part of some of my friends) to say, "Now what?"  We have a Great Commission responsibility to "make disciples of all nations"....."teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."  If we are calling all these college students who are away from home to be disciples, who is going teach them and disciple them?  Certainly we couldn't disciple all the students from all the surrounding college campuses ourselves--there were only five or so of us, but we did want to try to disciple the ministry team leaders to first make sure they were genuine Christians and were connected with a local church for support, that they had a Great Commission focus in their ministry, and that they were ready to seek those who were lost and celebrate the return of those who were found.  I can't say how effective we were, but as the other members moved away and moved on with life, I asked the other ministry team members if they wanted to continue the ministry in some online format and this website and the Discord server associated with this website is what came out of our conversations.  It is different work than what we originally set out to do, but it all has the same gospel-centered purpose.  Just the audience is much larger now.

Let's get back to today's passage.  The woman in today's story had ten silver coins that were important to her, though each coin was worth about a day's wage, so this is about 10 days worth of wages.  Losing 10% of what you have is significant and much more than the 1% of the sheep that were lost in the last story.  While the sheep itself was probably worth more than a single day's wages, the culture would have valued these silver coins more than they would have valued a single sheep (sheep are pretty dumb and stinky, and they were something that in the culture was meant to be sacrificed or eaten).  Coins were currency that everyone understood the value of and they were to be saved and treasured like this woman is doing, but there is something else interesting that Jesus has pointed out about coins like this in the past.  They bear the image of the king or Caesar who issued the coin and Jesus has made mention in the past of how we are to render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God the things that are God's because the coin stamped with Caesar's image belongs to Caesar but we are made in God's image and belong to Him.  Could Jesus be trying to point out the value of person made in the image of God here which applies to all people and not just to the "sheep" that were presumed to be just the people of Israel?  We're also talking about Greek coins here where "Greek" was synonymous with "Gentile" in that day, and where the male shepherd was highly valued among the culture in Jesus' time, this poor woman would not have been valued at all--especially if she was a Gentile too.  No one would have cared to help her look for the thing she had lost because a single coin doesn't mean anything to a man who is rich, but to this poor woman, it was extremely valuable.

So then the woman, as soon as she notices the coin is lost, searches diligently, sweeping the whole house and lighting a lamp to look in all the dark corners of the house (comparing this version of the parable with other versions of it in other gospels) until she finds it.  Many would say that it wasn't worth all that effort to look for a single coin, but it was worth it to her.  In fact, it was so worth it to her that she called all her friends together to celebrate, though this celebration must have been very costly to her and cost far more than that coin that she lost.  Everyone understood this though saw that the value is decided by the one who possesses the item based off of how much it means to them.  Next time we will talk about something of much more significant value and the parable that most of us know the best out of these three because we like to jump to the end and skip the dramatic build-up that Jesus gave.  That parable speaks about the lost son for sure, but there are other main characters too like the father and the brother (remember that this conversation all started over some Pharisees who were upset that Jesus was fellowshipping with sinners and tax collectors.  Jesus will have the words of these Pharisees hearts come out of the brother's mouth at the end of that parable).  I look forward to covering that with you next time.