What Does Luke 15:6 Mean?
And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, the one that had lost its way."
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.THE KEY
The shepherd calls it “my sheep” while it is still lost: lostness never cancels belonging.
THE MEANING
The one you experience as lost is still held within the shepherd’s “my sheep.” Lostness is real, but it does not erase belonging; being found becomes joy shared with others.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that being lost means you are no longer someone’s to seek or welcome home.
THE ROOT
ἀπολωλός
apolōlos
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
To lose, perish, or destroy; here, having been lost.
“the one that had lost its way” in this verse is apolōlos. The Greek form means “having been lost” and comes from a verb whose range also includes perishing. Yet the sentence calls the sheep “my sheep” in the very breath that names its lostness: its condition is real, but it has not lost its belonging.
ALSO GROWS
apōleia: loss, ruin, or destruction
ἀπώλεια
This noun carries the same root into the outcome of loss, giving the sheep’s lostness real weight without making it the final word.
apollymenoi: those perishing or being lost
ἀπολλύμενοι
This participle from the same verb shows the root describing an ongoing condition; here, the shepherd’s finding meets that condition with recovery.
THE PATTERN
Being lost does not erase belonging; when the lost is found, recovery becomes shared joy.
I will seek the one who lost the way, and bring back the driven away, and bind up the broken, and hold up the sick. But the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.And if it happens that he finds it, Truly, I say to you, he rejoices over that one more than over the ninety and nine that have never wandered.For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.THE THREAD
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.“That which was lost” uses the same Greek word family as “lost” here: ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi), to lose or perish. Luke 15:6 calls the lost one “my sheep”; Luke 19:10 shows that this lostness is what the seeking comes to meet.
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