from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents
 

 

Lesson 62

Luke 15  The Lost Found

The Story

Primary

Who cared most to come to the Lord and to listen to His teaching? Not the proud Pharisees, who thought that they were good, but the publicans, as the tax gatherers were called, and the sinners who knew that they needed help. Many of these poor people were one day with the Lord. The Pharisees complained that He received sinners and ate with them, but the Lord loved to have these poor people come and loved to help them. To show how He loved these poor people, the Lord spoke three parables.

The first was about a sheep that was lost and how the shepherd found it and brought it back. Tell me about the shepherds in that country. You have learned about them in the story of David and in the story of the Christmas shepherds. You know how they watched the sheep in the fields and how the sheep loved and trusted them. We will tell together the story of the lost sheep in the Bible words.

Another parable was about a silver piece which a woman lost, and she lighted her little lamp and swept the bare earth floor and found it. How glad the woman was, and her friends were happy with her.

There was one more parable. All listen while we read it. I hope you have the three pictures for the three parables.

Junior

Who were with the Lord listening to His teaching? The Pharisees and scribes objected. The Lord explained His love for these poor people in three beautiful parables.

Who will tell us the story about the sheep that was lost and was found by the shepherd?

Who will tell the story about the lost silver piece? Explain to us about the silver piece, the little lamp, and the bare earth floor.

Another parable was about a father with two sons. The younger son went far from home and got into great trouble. There was a famine in that land. He had spent all his money and was in want. A man sent him into his fields to feed swine and he was so hungry that he would have eaten the husks that the swine did eat. The husks were probably the thick hard pods of the carob tree, which were once found sometimes on fruit stands, called St. John's bread. Then the boy thought of his home and his father. He came to himself and was ashamed, and said, "I will arise and go to my father, and will say, Make me as one of thy hired servants." He came and his father was looking for him and ran to meet him, and kissed him and brought him in, and gave him the best he had in the home. The older brother, when he came from the field, was angry that the father had treated the wanderer so, but the father said, "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." We must read this parable carefully and think how it explained the Lord's love for the poor people who came to Him, and for all people who have done wrong and are sorry and come back to Him for help. The answer of the father to the elder brother was the Lord's answer to the Pharisees who objected to His receiving sinners. Read verses 1, 2, 31, 32.

When He had finished, the Pharisees must have seen that they were like the elder brother, thinking themselves very good and unwilling that the Lord should show kindness to the publicans and sinners. The parables should teach us two things. We ought not to be proud like the elder brother and think ourselves better than other people. And if we have done wrong like the younger brother and wandered away from the Father's house and wasted His good gifts, we must never despair and think that it is too late to do better, that the Lord will not forgive and help us if we try. He is always ready when we are willing to try.


1. What three parables did the Lord speak about finding things that have been lost? Who can tell me about the first parable? The second? The third?

2. How are we like shepherds? What are the sheep that sometimes go astray? What must we do then? Who will rejoice with us?

3. When am I near the Heavenly Father's home? And when am I in a far country? Why does it speak of a famine in the far country?

4. What ought we to do when we feel that we have done wrong? Is it ever in this world too late to make a new beginning? Will the Lord ever fail to help us if we try to do better?

Spiritual Study

Intermediate

We have spoken of the three parables as teaching the same lesson, that if we care so much for a sheep or a silver piece or a son, the Lord must care more for His children. Still the parables are not a repetition, but each one teaches about the Lord's care for some particular thing in human character. What do the sheep represent? Gentle, innocent affections of trust towards the Lord and love to one another. The Lord entrusts to each of us a hundred sheep when He gives us in childhood a full measure of gentle, innocent affections. The Lord is the shepherd and we are lesser shepherds under Him. How apt the gentle affections are to be lost as we grow older! When we find that something of innocence and gentleness is missing, the parable shows us that we ought to make an earnest effort to bring it back. The Lord will help us if we try, and angels rejoice with us. (A. 5992, 9836)

What element of character is represented by the silver piece? There was a Golden Age when people lived in love, and a Silver Age when they were intelligent in heavenly wisdom. The bright white silver represents heavenly intelligence. Ten pieces, like the hundred sheep, mean the full measure of knowledge of what is right and of beautiful true thoughts which the Lord gives to us. But if we are not faithful to what we know is right we lose our intelligence and begin to grow stupid in heavenly things. We must light our lamp and sweep the house; that is, we must use what truth we have, to remove what is false and wrong from our minds, and to regain the heavenly intelligence; and angels will rejoice with us. (E. 675)

The parable of the sheep is about good affections. The parable of the silver is about true thought. The other parable completes the series: affection, thought, and deed. It describes our going astray in actual life and our return to heavenly ways by the Lord's help. "The far country" is a state very different from the good life which the Lord would have us live. The want and the famine in that land show how soon the pleasure in evil ways is gone and one is left miserable and unsatisfied. The young man in the parable became a servant; living in evil ways one soon finds that he is not free. Feeding swine and sharing their food is a last attempt to find happiness in self-indulgent pleasures. But there is no happiness until we look up to higher, better things and remember the Lord and the heavenly home, and are sorry for our wrongdoing and resolve to do right obediently like servants in our Father's house. Their life of duty is better than the life of self-indulgence. When we look up in this way and make a new beginning, the Lord comes to help us and gives unexpected blessings. It is right for the son to intend to be a servant, to do right because it is right; but the father does not let him say the word "servant," he gives him unexpected freedom and happiness. The best robe represents beautiful, heavenly thoughts; the fatted calf the earnest affection of the heavenly life; and the music and dancing the active pleasure of it. (E. 279; N. 159-161) The parable does not mean that one must do wrong before he can receive and appreciate the good things of heaven, but he must realize that without the Lord's help he is inclined to evil and far away from heaven. The elder brother of outwardly proper life must also know his evil tendencies and repent before he can receive and enjoy the deeper blessings. The joy of the shepherd, the joy of the woman, the joy of the loving father are only faint suggestions of the Lord's joy in helping everyone who feels his need and asks His help.

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