Luke 15

Luke 15
The Latin text of Luke 14:30–19:7 in Codex Gigas (13th century)
BookGospel of Luke
CategoryGospel
Christian Bible partNew Testament
Order in the Christian part3

Luke 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke the Evangelist composed this Gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles.[1] This chapter records three parables of Jesus Christ: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost or 'prodigal' son,[2][3] a trilogy about redemption that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners".[4]

Biblical commentator Heinrich Meyer refers to this chapter, the following chapter and Luke 17:1–10 as a "new, important, and for the most part parabolic set of discourses" linked by the murmuring of the Pharisees and Jesus' responses to them and to his disciples.[5] Arno Gaebelein notes that while these parables have wide appeal and application, in studying them "it must not be overlooked that the Lord answers in the first place the murmuring Pharisees".[6]

  1. ^ Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
  2. ^ Section headings in the New International Version and New King James Version
  3. ^ Halley, Henry H. Halley's Bible Handbook: an Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962.
  4. ^ Richard N. Longenecker, The Challenge of Jesus' Parables, Eerdmans, 2000, ISBN 0-8028-4638-6, pp. 201–204.
  5. ^ Meyer, H. A. W. (1880), Meyer's NT Commentary on Luke 15, translated from the German sixth edition, accessed 29 June 2018
  6. ^ Gaebelein, A. C., Gaebelein's Annotated Bible on Luke 15, accessed 28 September 2023