The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 2 — Section 39

EXPOSITION. Vers, 3-5.-And he spake this parable CHAPTER XV. unto them, saying, What m1LI1 of you, having Yore. 1-32.-The Lord spe,aka hi~ three an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, 7,arable-stories of the " lost," in which he doth not leave the ninety and nine in the explains his reason for lo"Oing and recei'Ding wilderness1 Now, there are two leading the sinftil. ideas in the three stories-one on the llfde Vers. 1, 2.-Then drew near unto him of the Speaker; one on the side of those to all the publioans and sinners for to hear whom the parable-stories were spoken. (1) him. And the Pharisees and soribes mur- On the side of the speaker. God's anxiety for mured, saying, This KD receiveth sinners, sinners is shown; he pities with a great pity and eateth with them ; more BCcure.tely their wretchedness ; he sets, besides, a high rendered, there were drawing near to him. value on their souls, as part of a tree.sure be- This wiu; now, in the last stage of the final longing to him. (2) On the side of the listener11. journey, the usual state of things. The Their sympathy with him in his anxiety for great ontsirle class came in crowds to listen sinners is claimed. He has sought it hitherto to Jesus. These were men and women who, in vain. The imagery of the first story is very through home and family associations, homely-easy, too, to understand. A small through their occupations, which were sheep-master pastures his little :flock of a looked upon with disfavour by the more hundxed sheep in one of those wide unculti- rigid Jews, often no donbt through their vated pie.ins which fringe portions of the own careless, indifferent character, bad little land of promise. This is what we must or nothing to do with their religious e.nd understand by " the wilderness." The orthodox countrymen. Poor wanderers, hundred sheep represent the people of sinners, thoughtless ones, no one cared for Israel. The lost sheep, one who had them, their present or their future. Do not broken with Jewish respectability. One these in every age make up the majority? only is menti9ned as lost, not by any means The religious, so often Pharisees in bee.rt, as representing the small number of the despising them, refusing to make allow- outcast class-the contrary is the case-but ances for them, looking on them as hope- as indicative of the value in the eyes of the lessly lost ones. Bnt o.t no time was this All-Father of one immortal soul. And go state of things so accentuated as when Jesus after that whioh is lost, until he 11.nd it 1 lived among men. Now, among such care- And when he hath found it, he layeth it on less irreligious men e.nd women, are many his shoulders, rejoioing. This diligent whose bee.rte are very tender, very ready to search after the lost one, the tender care listen if the teacher of religion has any shown by the shepherd when the object of kind, wise words for them. The grave and his search we.s found, and the subsequent severe, yet intensely pitiful and loving, doc- joy, pictured in a humble everyday figure trines of the Ga.l.iliBan Master found such. the mode of acting of which the orthodox His words were words of stem rebuke, and yet J ewe complained. They said, " He receiveth were full of hope, even for the hopeless. No sinners, and ee.teth with them." man he.d ever spoken to them like this Man. Ver. 6.-And when he oometh home, he Hence the crowds of publicans e.nd sin- oalleth together his friends and neighbours, ners who were now ever pressing round the saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I Muster. But the teachers of Israel, the have found my sheep whioh was lost. And priestly order, the learned and rigid scribes, here the shepherd craves for sympathy from the honoured doctors of the holy Law,-tlmie his fellows; he would have others she.re in were indignant, and on first thoughts not his joy in finding the perishing, suffering without reason, at the apparent preference sheep. This sympathy with his effort to felt for aud special tenderness shown by win the lost the Galilrean Master had Jesus to this great outside class of sinners. looked for among the rulers and teachers of The three parables of thls fifteenth chapter Israel in vain. Now, sympathy, it must be wt:re the apowgia of the Galilrean Master to remembered, is not merely sentiment or orthodox Israel, but they appeal to an courtesy. True sympathy with a cause audience far greater than any enclosed in means working in good eurnest for the the coasts of the Holy Land, or living in ea.use. Thill, however, the ruling spirits in the.t re!tleae age. bre.el, iD every sect, coldly refused. They 011. xv. 1-32.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 41