Parable of the Lost Sheep

The Good Shepherd (Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, 17th century)

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is about a man who leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one which is lost. In Luke 15, it is the first member of a trilogy about redemption that Jesus addresses to the Pharisees and religious leaders after they accuse him of welcoming and eating with sinners.

Quotes about

Bible

• What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
  • Gospel of Matthew 18:12-14 NIV.

• Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you 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.
  • Gospel of Luke 15:3-7 NIV.

Others

• If I should do so now it occurs that he places himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep which went astray upon the mountains, and when the owner of the hundred sheep found the one that was lost and threw it upon his shoulders, and came home rejoicing, it was said that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had been found than over the ninety and nine in the fold. The application is made by the Saviour in this parable thus: 'Verily I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.' Repentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness.
  • Regarding his debate with Judge S. A. Douglas, in his Springfield address (17 July 1858), published in The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln: Together with a Sketch of the Life of Hannibal Hamlin: Republican candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States (1860), p. 50
  • Abraham Lincoln was alluding to the words of Jesus in Luke 15:7

• The mistake made by all previous systems of ethics has been the failure to recognize that life as such is the mysterious value with which they have to deal. All spiritual life meets us within natural life. Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life and spiritual life alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life.
  • Albert Schweitzer, The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 264

• So the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the mountains to go and look for that one sheep. He leaves them where they are. He does not worry about protecting them from the cold or wild animals. He does not surround them with a fence so that no others get lost. All his thoughts are focused on the lost sheep. For him, that one sheep now matters more than the ninety-nine. If the Lord is this shepherd, then the believer may wonder if he would really leave all the sheep to search for one, if he would really lose all his joy for the Church if even one soul were missing. And as he asks himself this question – and this is why this parable is told – it will suddenly occur to him how great the Lord's love and attachment is, not only to everyone, but to each individual, and how fragile and delicate is the joy he feels for the flock, since it depends on the response of the individuals who make it up. If a voice is missing from the choir, it is missed in the singing. If he counts his own and one is missing, then for the Lord the number has become discrepant. And it is not up to those who remain to console the Lord for his loss. What needs to be settled is a matter between the Lord and the sheep that has been lost. For this alone, the Lord takes on the whole sacrifice. The others remain on the mountain, in danger, they see the Lord walking away and feel abandoned, without guidance, but the guidance is entrusted to them; they just have to stay where they are. So that when the Lord returns from his search, he does not have to start all over again, with the second sheep, with the sixtieth, with the last one.
  • Adrienne von Speyr, Le parabole del Signore (Gleichnisse des Herrn, 1966), translation into Italian by Giuseppe Reguzzoni, Jaca Book, Milano, 2008, pp. 70-71. ISBN 978-88-16-30459-8.