EXTRAORDINARY RESCUE IN AN ORDINARY HOME

LUKE 15:1–10

Pharisees and teachers of the law frequently disparaged Jesus for spending time with those who lived on the margins of religious acceptability—particularly the tax collectors and sinners. When those kinds of people gathered around Jesus, the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). When Jesus heard this criticism from these religious leaders, he responded by telling them a series of parables designed to illustrate God’s perspective of the value of the tax collectors and sinners. One of these was the parable of the lost coin.

It is important to note that in Luke’s Gospel, this parable immediately followed one in which a shepherd rejoiced over finding his lost sheep. Jesus concluded that “in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7). Similarly, Jesus used the parable of the lost coin to show the rejoicing over that which was lost being found, but in this parable he placed a slight difference in the conclusion. In the coin parable he spoke of a woman who lost one of ten silver coins. This coin referred to in the parable is called a drachma, worth approximately a day’s wage. Since her coins represented about ten days’ wages, it is thought that she lived in an ordinary village home consisting of limited light and compacted dirt floors.24 Finding her small lost coin under those conditions was probably not a simple task. Therefore, when she found the lost coin, she was so thankful and excited that she called all of her friends and neighbors together to rejoice with her.

Greek silver drachma. A drachma such as this one was the missing object mentioned in the parable of the lost coin.

So in the minds of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, how did the conclusion of the woman’s recovery of her lost coin in her village home differ from the conclusion of the parable of the lost sheep? Sheep were animals that had the capacity to return to the flock on their own, which is what the Pharisees and teachers of the law expected of the tax collectors and “sinners.” The religious leaders believed these outcasts had committed wrongs against other people for which restitution had to be made before forgiveness could be granted (see Luke 19:8).25 Offenses between people had to be rectified between the parties involved, and forgiveness could not be granted, even by God on the Day of Atonement, until the transgression had been appeased.26 The idea that people might forgive, much less seek out those who had wronged them, before the offense had been rectified was inconceivable to the Pharisees and teachers of the law. For them such restitution was the definition of repentance.

Dining area of a Galilean home.

The lost coin, which in the parable represented the tax collectors and sinners, was incredibly valuable to its owner, even though it did not have the capacity to return (repent) to its owner as the sheep in the previous parable could. So when Jesus compared repentance of the tax collectors and sinners with the joy of an ordinary woman finding a lost coin, the religious leaders were stunned because Jesus’s parable redefined repentance from their definition (an act of restoration made by the sinner) to God’s definition (the act of being found even though the “coin” could do nothing to be found).

Basement of a Judean house. Searching for a lost coin in the basement, where animals were kept, would be no small task.

Kitchen and sleeping area of an ordinary Judean home.