Parable Of The Lost Sheep Research Paper

Easily one of most recognizable parables in the Bible, the parable of the prodigal son serves as an allegory for God’s unconditional love and mercy for sinners under the guise of a story about a son’s loss and redemption. To provide context about how parables are intended to work, this essay will begin on how parables function on two levels. On the surface, they are just short and linear narratives. However, upon a closer reading there is a deeper meaning behind them. Parables are meant to be symbolic stories that provide moral lessons. This particular parable was set up so that the Pharisees and scribes would understand the criticism that went with it as they were the intended audience.

Jesus used the parable to revel how people respond to the message of the Kingdom of God. The parable shows that there are people who reject or not keeping the word and they are unfruitful. Only people who respond to the message and persevere it until they bear fruit in the kingdom of God.

When looking in the Gospel of Matthew 15:21-28 and the Gospel of Mark 7:24-30 one can find that each of these pieces of their respective gospels have both some similarities and differences. There is evidence of overlap between these two which are quite easy to find whilst one is reading the sections of each. There also are points in which these two accounts diverge from one another by either telling a certain part of the other gospel in a different way, removing content from one of the other gospels, or adding something that may not have been referenced or described in the other. Either way these accounts from Matthew and Mark both have connections to each other even if not visible on the surface.

In Matthew 1-2, the infant stories are used to prepare the ground for the theme of Jesus; the new and perfect Moses, the great teacher and interpreter of God’s ways. A parallel can be drawn between the experiences of the infant Jesus and the experience of Moses. This can be seen in Matthew 2:16-18, where the slaying of innocent male Hebrew children occurred around the time of the birth of Jesus, and in Exodus 1:15-22, where Hebrew children were also murdered at the time of Moses’ birth. Just as Moses came out of Egypt, leading the people of God, so does Jesus. Following the infancy stories, the rest of Matthew’s Gospel is structured around five long discourses where Jesus teaches. On each occasion, the evangelist indicates that a great teacher has been at work (Maloney, 1988, p. 133-34).

There are many different gospels that tell a similar story. Matthew and Mark are two Gospels written in a similar way but have different audiences. The story is the Last Supper and is about the last meal that Jesus experienced with his Apostles before his Sacrifice. There are many similarities, but not very many differences. Overall, the same story is told, but from two different perspectives.

They play off of each other to get their individual points across by researching each other’s material. Matthew did it to Mark’s and Luke did it to Matthew. The timeline of their stories are similar but they have many differences. They have all put their own twist on the subject to get their individual points across and show others what they found out about the life of Jesus. The problem with the Synoptic Gospel is that Matthew

The parable of the Lost Sheep indicates the shepherd left ninety-nine sheep to find the one lost sheep. Why would Jesus teach to leave ninety-nine sheep for only one lost sheep? Was there another shepherd in-training to look after the ninety-nine or how long was the shepherd gone? Questions our mere mortal minds of 2017 try to answer using current culture ideals. Too often, this generation of believers get bogged down in the details and not the message of the parables. Jesus taught using parables to draw the listener to His message about the kingdom of heaven and can best be understood looking through a scriptural lens and not beyond what the Word provides.

The common belief among source critics is that, the Gospel of Mark is the oldest and Matthew and Luke used his gospel along with an unknown source to write their Gospels. Evidence supporting this view make the makes four points. First, the Luke’s Gospel is contains approximately half of Mark’s information and Matthew’s Gospel encompasses almost all of Mark’s views. Second, Mark’s words are used verbatium Matthew and Luke. Third, Matthew and Luke follow the same sequence of events as Mark. Finally, Matthew and Luke sometimes reword Mark’s uncomfortable passages of scripture to allow smooth transitions and ease of understanding.[5]

The widely accepted theoretical solution for the synoptic problem is a second source, usually called the ‘Q’ scroll. The ‘Q’ scroll is thought to contain 235 verses, while leaving out any narrative referring to Jesus’ birth, early life, or death. The scroll has been reconstructed from shared knowledge between the gospels. This is commonly called the “two-source hypothesis”, where the Gospel of Mark and the ’Q’ scroll were accessible by the authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. This is brought around by the fact that Matthew and Luke share commonalities with Mark that they do not share with each other. The “two-source hypothesis” gains further support from the timeline, which puts Mark as the first gospel around 70 CE and Matthew and Luke following suit around 85 CE.

In the bible we have recently been looking at the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. In these gospels there are a lot of similarities and also some differences. For example in each one of those gospels it tells the story of John’s Preaching About the Coming One. (Matthew 3:11-12, Mark 1:7-8, Luke 3:15-18) All three of these gospels have a share a lot of similarities. This is not the only story. Another story is The Walking on the Water. (Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52) Although not this story is not in Luke, the other two gospels have similarities. Looking at all of the things that are the same in these stories helps supports that the bible is true. It would be hard for the authors of these gospels to make up exactly the same thing for all three or two stories. There are many other examples of similar stories in the

A parable is a “simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels.” Parables are a form of teaching in Judaism, this is where Jesus made it a point in his ministry to gather common things that could be familiar to everyone and anyone who was wiling to hear him speak, for example bread and sheep. He made sure that the meaning of what was said was very clear in the context of His teachings. Parables in other words are an “earthly form of stories with heavenly meaning”. In Matthew (13: 13) Jesus says “Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” This quote can be seen as Jesus’ way of communicating with his disciples, because many of them could not fully comprehend his teachings and what was being spoken. Another reason why He spoke in parables was so that “…unbelievers would be without comprehension”. Only those who were willing to follow Him and allow Him into their hearts, trusting in Him would understand His ways. His main deal was to be able to teach people, and hopefully in teaching them they would learn an d pass down what was taught to others. Just like in our society now and when it comes to books, magazines, etc Jesus used such things as words, pictures, and stories to help everyone learn and understand things in a certain way, because everyone learns differently he took that into consideration.

I believe that is a reason on why Jesus chose to talk in parables. He wanted people to learn a lesson that they wouldn’t forget. I believe Jesus was trying to teach us how to act in this parable. I have two reasons why that is. The first reason is that people act on what they see.

Luke's genealogy of Jesus and his birth narrative compare with the one found in Matthew's gospel is that the birth narratives in both Matthew and Luke helps their readers to know who Jesus is and where he comes from.

There are small differences within each book. This raises some questions with what book was written first and where the information came from. One theory is that there is a third party book named Q. Historically we know Mark is the first book written. With the Q theory it is said that Matthew and Luke use information from both Mark and Q to write their own version of the story of Jesus. Which could account for the extra or missing parts between Matthew and Luke. There is also another theory that Matthew was the first book then Mark and Luke were written after. This could fit because Matthew has the most information and the beginning genealogy. Mark and Luke could have simply left out the parts they felt weren’t as important to the

During Jesus’ life he was teaching in many different ways one of them was telling the parables. Parable is an earthly story with the heavenly meaning. That means that Jesus was making up a story in which there would be a real people, working of doing something that was common at that times. Sometimes he used the values whether material or spiritual, that were valuable in old times. So he was making everything to make the story look more realistic. But under the close of the poor man or woman and under the animal or a subject there was always something mach more complicated, something about his father, himself, and the people that were following the God or not.