Parables

• 'Parable' comes from the Greek meaning 'to place side by side'. A story from everyday life is placed alongside a spiritual truth. There is one main point to a parable. The detail is not intended to have specific meaning and is not to be seen as promoting a secular moral point.
• The theme of Jesus' teaching is the Kingdom of God and the parables describe aspects of what the kingdom of God is like.
• Parables were a useful method of teaching because as stories from everyday life they could be easily remembered and repeated. Hearers could interpret them at their own level. Parables have layers of meaning for the hearer to discover.

Self-righteous people and sinners

• At the heart of Judaism and Christianity is the seeking of a relationship with God, which if broken can be restored through repentance on the part of the sinner and restoration or redemption on the part of God.
• There is the paradox within Judaism and Christianity. Believers strive to obey God's will but in so doing miss the mark in relation to what God expects. For the Jew, in struggling to observe the details of the Law to win God's acceptance, it is easy to lose the spirit of that Law. This means that motivation for keeping the Law becomes its strict, literal observation which is an end in itself and overlooks the belief that the Law is the means by which the Jew can fulfil the spirit of the Law. The prophets tried to communicate a proper understanding of God and the Law in the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible. Those who fail to keep the Law are regarded as sinners who have cut themselves off from God. However, the sinner can turn out to be less hypocritical and more honest and sincere than the successful 'keeper of laws'. Human perception is different from God's perception. God sees the heart. The sinner, in contrast to the self-righteous person can be aware of shortcomings and sorry about them and therefore ready to accept God's forgiveness.
• The practice of the Christian faith can be perverted into legalism in exactly the same way as Judaism; the devout Christian can miss the mark by being too rigid in his or her interpretation of God's will. There is a danger, too, for Christians or members of any other faith, that they will presume that because of their religious insight they alone can dispense God's wishes.

Inclusivity - The Lost and the Righteous

• This means that everyone matters, that everyone is equal in God's eyes and everyone can get their relationship right with God, in spite of past sins
• Jesus' challenge to the society of his time was his revelation of what the Kingdom of God was like. It was shocking to learn that it embraced all those excluded by society including sinners who were 'lost' because they had blatantly broken the Law of God and were unclean. Jesus puts value on everyone. The sinner is not damned but encouraged to repent and restore the relationship with God. The 'good' people - in Jesus' time the righteous religious leaders - are in a more difficult position because they are not able to recognise their guilt. Their pride in their alleged perfection is seen as leading them to believe that they have no need of God and what the Kingdom of God offers. The sinner recognises a need of forgiveness and God's kingdom.

Repentance, Forgiveness and Celebration

• Judaism and Christianity have both focused on God's dealing with human guilt. In the Christian Old Testament / Hebrew Bible the sacrificial system restored relations with God. After the destruction of the Temple, the Day of Atonement was seen as accomplishing this. God responded to the sinners' 'turning back', repentance with forgiveness. For Christians, Jesus' death was the final sacrifice and forgiveness awaits the truly repentant. The initiative is with the sinner; the response, in judgment and mercy, is God's.
• This parable highlights God's joy and the celebration that accompanies the return to the fold of the 'lost sheep'. There is welcome, not condemnation. God waits in hope for the guilty to respond to his offer of forgiveness.

Church

Matthew's Gospel related the parable to the early church. There was concern that new Christians were being led astray by false teachers. It is not surprising that at that early stage there was concern about what was the true teaching about Jesus and what came from false teachers. Inevitably church leaders were struggling to be true to the life and teaching of Jesus. Universal agreement had - and still has - to be reached on church doctrine. But it was important to deal with suspect teaching and anything that might lead converts into apostasy, that is, to leaving the Christian community.