By Ray Knight
By contrast to the other parable of this pair - the parable of the Lost Sheep, this parable is not concerning repentance unto initial salvation. We all know salvation is a free gift and cannot be worked for or bought. God does it all. In the preceding parable, the Shepherd goes after the lost sheep to bring him into the fold with the other ‘just’ ones. In this parable it is a ‘she’, in fact a married woman, and she loses something that she had already received. This then applies to us in a different way.
BACKGROUND
In Jesus’ time, marriages were very formal and included many special vows. During the intricate ceremony, as the young couple would be facing each other, the bridegroom would drop into the cupped hands of his young bride, TEN SILVER COINS. Each wife-to-be had been taught whoever places the ten pieces of silver in your hands, is he who will love you. She believes that God will kindle love in their hearts for one another even though the marriage was arranged.
These silver pieces, according to the Greek word DRACHMA, were coins that carried the image of the King on one side and the year that they were minted on the other. As the bride receives these coins, she understands that she is fully purchased. Ye have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s. (I Corinthians 6:20).
These coins each have a hook attached and they are either worn in the hair or on a garland that would go around her head. She will esteem them of great value and guard them with her life, because any carelessness on her part would be regarded by her husband as a lack of affection and respect for him. He might even think that she had sold one coin in order to purchase another lover!
If a wife (‘woman’ in the Greek is GUNE = wife) loses any of these coins, it breaks the marriage covenant. She could be cast out of her husband’s house and would either have to go home to mother in disgrace or become a woman of the streets.
We have entered into an arranged marriage union with our heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, and HE has given us a ten-fold expression of Himself. Jane Leade back in 1679 had a mighty visitation from the Lord wherein He instructed her with the TEN commandments.
Wisdom came in such a way that she saw how the ten commandments were, by the Spirit, instructions of what was involved in coming into the Image of God. For example: THOU SHALT NOT STEAL. Thou shalt not allow a single thought to enter your mind that would in any way take away an expression of My life and dealings within them . There is truly a tenfold gift or provision from the Lord that seals our close relationship with Him. Today these ten coins represent ten promises to us as Christ fulfilled the law and released us from the bondage of having to line up with them . .. so to us they are the same words but become promises!
A PARABLE = a natural-realm happening that, will show us what the desire of Father God’s heart is towards us. The ‘hungry’ are usually teachable and sensitive!
SHE RECEIVED A REVELATION AND CONVICTION THAT SOMETHING WAS MISSING
This wife received a prompting from the Holy Spirit that something very important was missing from her life. She didn’t push that thought aside; had she done so, the outcome would have been disastrous. One of her silver coins was missing. In her preparation for a special occasion she saw that a coin was gone. Because of its value and significance, she could not brush it off with a glib, ‘Well it’s ONLY 10%!’ ...this was a serious matter. If only the WIFE OF CHRIST would realize that her headband is incomplete! How long had she been without this coin - she did not know, only it was long enough for her house (her heart & mind) to become cluttered, dirty and most certainly dusty. Wherever this coin was, it was covered up. The repercussions of this discovery hit her if she didn’t do something about it right now! It was enough to break the oneness and closeness of her relationship with her beloved. The thought of what might happen if she did not find it, ‘stabbed’ her in the pit of her stomach. It was hers and she lost it! Nobody was to blame but herself. She lost it in HER house too; she knew that, for her search started right there...in her house...in her thinking and inner being. She had to repent … change her thinking and attitude.
Psalm 139:23,24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. She had to search for what was missing ON HER OWN. Yes. . . and, praise God, she found it; it was still in her house!
THIS WIFE HAD TO BECOME TEACHABLEI must do this search diligently (which means carefully). This was a personal dealing from the Lord I will need a lamp. Psalm 119:105 came to her, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet (walk). The moment that she took hold of the lamp, it showed that she was TEACHABLE and PLIABLE. It showed too, that she was determined to examine carefully every dark corner of her wrong conclusions in her house (= mind, thinking, convictions, lack of understanding and even her ‘foundations’ that she had taken for granted as being correct). She was absolutely convinced that she must have ALL the expressions of the King’s Image and likeness to surround her thinking. She encouraged herself while searching with the declaration, they are mine, HE gave them to me. The full expression of her salvation (silver) required all ten parts.
The Lord answered her cry for help. She found what she was looking for. The silver coin showed itself once she had swept away the dust of her traditional thinking, carnal eschatology, religious ways of always quoting the ‘letter-word’ scriptures and her constant desire to move in the natural realm . Her salvation was again complete in her house. She regained the vision that she was to experience the fullness of salvation without any space travel!.
Ye are saved (Eph.2:8)... Ye are BEING saved (I Cor.1:18...present continuous tense) he that endureth to the end shall be saved (Matt.10:22).
FROM WHAT DID SHE REPENT?She did not go through the repentance as of one coming to the Lord, but rather she repented of her carelessness with what her husband had given her. She had forgotten the intrinsic value of that gift of His life that she had received and had failed to guard sufficiently. She repented of her laziness, lethargy and passivity, of just not bothering to remain alert to who she was and what she was called to come into. She repented of her ignorance of her husband’s expectations of her. She had thought that it automatically happened without her having to do anything.
Her friends and neighbours knew what she had lost and knew the importance of the missing 10% of that which carried the King’s image. They probably longed to help her find what was missing in her life, but had the wisdom to remain on the outside of her house. But when the silver-coined headband was once again complete, they knew just how to rejoice with their friend and neighbour! Praise God for such brothers and sisters! Our thinking must be surrounded with the thinking of redemption (silver), otherwise we will lose what is so very precious.
Thus, in Father-God’s realm of Spirit, there was rejoicing over one HARMARTOLOS, which means in the Greek, sinner. Had she not change her thinking, she would have missed the mark and not shared in the prize (which is the Greek meaning of the word REPENTANCE) of the high calling of Christ.
Let us be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit within to any silver coins in our development that are lost and covered over with dust. (Dust , don’t forget, is the flesh in our thinking and walk). Never allow anything to mar your relationship with your heavenly Bridegroom, because He purposes that you come into the full image of the King, even Himself!
Luke 15:8-10 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calls her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents.