PART 2: The Lost Coin
Luke 15: 8-10
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? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.” Just so I tell you, “There is joy before the angles of God over one sinner who repents.”
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In The Prodigal Son Parable, Jesus tells three stories as one parable. In the Lost Sheep story, Jesus is the Shepherd. In the Lost Coin story, Jesus is the Woman. And in the Lost Sons parable, Jesus is the Father.
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The Pharisees are complaining that Jesus is accepting Sinners. To the Pharisees, sinners are “unclean,” because they break the Law of Moses.
Author Dr. Ken Bailey writes that in the Middle Eastern culture, comparing a man to a woman would have offended a male audience. Pharisees thanked God daily that they were not created as women. Yet that’s exactly what Jesus does. He compares himself to a woman.
Most likely, ten coins represent ten days’ wages. A loss of just one of these coins would be significant. Jesus casts this woman as a wife who is trusted with a relatively large sum of money for an average family, further elevating all women in stature.
First-century homes were generally smaller than today’s one car garage, and the windows were little more than slits, about six inches high and placed seven feet above the ground. Floors were covered with flat basalt stones, and cracks between the stones were wide. It therefore makes sense that a lamp was lit, the floor was swept, and a thorough search was made for the lost coin.*
Now with an inanimate lost coin, it’s abundantly clear that the woman’s diligent work does all the work of finding it. The coin itself plays no role in its being found. This concept is important when reading the lost sons.