Luke 15:8-9
Jesus told this parable of the lost coin to Pharisees and scribes who grumbled that He welcomed sinners and ate with them (Luke 15:1-9).
Lord, I feel small enough to be lost without anyone noticing. But You light lamps for one coin. Search me out tonight, lift me from the dust, and let heaven do its rejoicing. Amen.
Jesus told this parable of the lost coin to Pharisees and scribes who grumbled that He welcomed sinners and ate with them (Luke 15:1-9).
“Or what woman who has ten silver coins and loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep her house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors to say, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.’”
— Luke 15:8-9
Jesus told the parable of the lost coin to religious leaders who were offended that He ate with sinners. The coin was a drachma — about a day's wage, and likely part of a woman's ten-piece headdress, her dowry and her security. Losing one was not a small inconvenience; it was a hole in something meant to be whole. First-century houses in Galilee had small windows and packed dirt floors, so she lights a lamp in the daytime and sweeps every corner until the coin catches the light. Then she calls in the neighbors. Jesus' point is the ratio: heaven throws a party over one. Not over the impressive nine, but over the single lost thing that was worth turning the whole house over for.
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