Parable of the Lost Sheep

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in two of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament, as well as in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas.

According to the Gospels of Matthew (18:12–14) and Luke (15:3–7), a shepherd leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one which is lost. It is the first member of a trilogy about redemption that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners." The two parables that follow (in Luke's Gospel) are those of the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son. The parable of the Good shepherd, a pericope found in John 10:1-21, derives from it.

Narrative

In the Gospel of Luke, the parable is as follows:

Interpretation

The parable shares themes of loss, searching, and rejoicing with the Parable of the Lost Coin. The lost sheep or coin represents a lost human being.

As in the analogy of the Good Shepherd, Jesus is the shepherd, thus identifying himself with the image of God as a shepherd searching for stray sheep in Ezekiel 34:11–16.Joel B. Green writes that "these parables are fundamentally about God, ... their aim is to lay bare the nature of the divine response to the recovery of the lost."