Daily Bible Reading 1st November 2026 // Luke 15:1-3

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

3 So he told them this parable:

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We should note first of all the occasion of the parable. After the forthright challenge to count the cost of discipleship at the end of chapter 14, we pointed out that this radical challenge has a great drawing power (1). It is almost as if our Lord were indicating that this - the finding of the lost sheep, the recovery of the lost coin, the return of the prodigal - is the fruit of responding to the claims of discipleship. What encouragement this should be to us! But the scribes and Pharisees murmured, saying, 'This man receiveth sinners'. It was an expression of reproach, criticism, distaste on their part. It condemned Jesus, so far as they were concerned. But in reality it was His supreme commendation! They spoke more truly than they knew. Indeed, God has used their contemptuous words, and they stand for all time as the greatest commendation of the gospel. And Christ took their words, using them as a text, so to speak, and preached the best sermon ever preached on any text. What we have in what follows is therefore an exposition of the Pharisees' contemptuous utterance, and we are given two sets of pictures - one, of what it is to be a sinner, the other of the Man who receives them; and then an insight into what was involved in that receiving. There could hardly be a more comprehensive theological statement of the gospel! But it is important for us to realise that no single parable of the three is adequate in itself to portray the full message of the gospel: the shepherd seeking the sheep is one aspect of the gospel, but not the whole; the lost sheep is one aspect of sin, but not a complete or adequate picture. In principle, these pictures say the same thing, but in actuality they are different, and complement each other.