12
What do you think? If a certain man comes to have 100 sheep [brothers in the church] and one of them gets strayed [one disassociates himself and gives up on the church], will he not leave the 99 upon the mountains [in more than one congregation each of which has its own mountain/administration] and set out on a search for the one that is straying? [So a shepherd with multi congregational authority, should go and find those who have disassociated themselves from any of the congregations he is responsible for, and help them to rediscover their faith. If you want to know what is wrong with a congregation go and speak to those who have left it. Do not pre-book a red carpet inspection! This is not a numbers game it is a love game]
13 And if he happens to find it, I certainly tell you, he rejoices more over it than over the 99 that have not strayed [love is not dependent upon the number of its recipients - the rights of the many do not outweigh the rights of the few].
14 Likewise it is not a desirable thing with my Father who is in heaven for one of these little ones to perish (Matthew 18).
Matthew 18:12-14 and Luke 15:3-7 are not parallel. The conclusions are different. So the meanings are different.
3
Then he spoke this illustration to them, saying:
4 What man of you having 100 sheep, on losing one of them, will not leave the 99 behind in the desolate [place] [a congregation under test] and go for the lost one [who has given up and failed the baptism test for now] until he finds it?
5 And when he has found it [convinced the sheep to have another try] he puts it upon his shoulders [takes its load upon him for while. The sheep has stumbled, so he does the walking for a while] and rejoices.
6 And when he gets home [reaches the end of baptism test with the lost sheep] he calls his friends
[supporters not in the church] and his neighbours [supporters within the church] together, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me,
because I have found my sheep that was lost.'
7 I tell you that thus there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 righteous ones [so the 99 ones in the desolate place were passing the baptism test so as to be declared righteous] who have no need of repentance (Luke 15).
So Matthew 18 is about the good multi-congregational shepherd who visits those who have left the church in order to fix problems in the church. Luke 15 is about the loving presiding overseer of a flock who goes after sheep who have been stumbled and makes the effort to carry their burdens for them until they can carry them once again themselves. He is really happy when that sheep passes the test the second time around due to his help.
In Start Trek II, The wrath of Khan, Spock gives his life in order to save the whole crew of the Enterprise. Jim Kirk asks him: Why did you do it Spock? Spock answers by saying that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one. It was therefore the logical thing to do. And he is right, it was the logical thing to do for an individual who understands that no one has a future unless they value the lives of their brothers as much as they value their own. If the reader or the writer was clever enough, he would see that mankind has no future unless we adopt the laws of Christianity and he wouldn't need to read a single scripture to see it. But we are not that clever or wise or perspicacious in general. So we need to be informed, we need to be shown what the inescapable rules of everlasting co-existence are. Jesus put it like this:
12 This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you
13 No one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his soul in behalf of his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I am commanding you (John 15).
So Spock showed the greatest love that a man can show. Although being a Vulcan by culture, and coming from a race that suppresses his emotions, he reasoned that the continued existence of his community was more important than his own continued existence. He acted out of selfless Logic rather than love. This raises an interesting question. Is there a difference between selfless logic and love?
Well, in the parable of the lost sheep, and in Star Trek III, The search for Spock, we see that there is. Spock's 'love' can be taken one step further. In the parable, the shepherd abandons the 99 sheep and goes on a search for the one lost sheep. This search recklessly endangers his flock. So why does he take such a risk and make such a search? Well it is because he cannot bear to lose even one sheep. And this is because he loves them all. For if you do not love every sheep in the flock then what kind of a shepherd are you?
So when the Enterprise finally found and resurrected Spock, the Vulcan asked Jim Kirk why he had risked the whole crew of the Enterprise just to save one person, him. He asked this because he failed to understand the logic of the actions of the ship and its crew. The mathematics simply did not add up for him. Jim answered: Because the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.
But actually it was the love of the one that drove the whole crew to risk their lives to save him. The common theme in both cases is love of friends. Spock's logical calculation resulted in him doing the loving thing. But Jim Kirk and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise were able to the loving thing without any logical blooming calculation. Today, as ever, we must as a race recognise that life without love is not worth living. And that life without love has no future in any event. We must fight not for power, nor control, nor status, nor wealth, but for love itself. And in this system, that is one hell of a fight.
Love is the currency that buys us the time we need as a race to learn how to conquer sin. Without that currency we will destroy ourselves before we have learned how to avoid destroying ourselves.
Love is the vehicle that takes us beyond sin in our minds, and gives us the hope that we can conquer it and gain an everlasting future for ourselves. God is the maker of this vehicle, the love bug, but we are the drivers of it!
The good shepherd of 100 sheep, the good chief of 100 LWs will put the welfare of one of his sheep above his status as shepherd of the other 99.
12
What do you think? If a certain man [] comes to have 100 sheep []
and one of them gets strayed [saints in general], will he not leave the 99 upon the mountains
[congregational administrations] and set out on a search for the [one] that is straying?
13 And if he happens to find it [leads it to repentance], I certainly tell you, he rejoices more over it than over the 99,
the [ones] that have not strayed.
14 Likewise it is not a desirable thing with my Father who is in heaven for one of these little [ones] [born again, saints ]
to perish (Matthew 18).
3 Then he spoke this illustration to them, saying:
4 What man of you [],
with 100 sheep, on losing one of them [1NC reserves - 1% of the church],
will not leave the 99 behind in the desolate [place] [with no water baptism] and go for the [one] lost until he finds it?
5 And when he has found it he puts it upon his shoulders [make the 1NC reserves his head]
and rejoices.
6 And when he gets home []
he calls his friends [in the LWs] and his neighbours [in nearby kingdom halls] together, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me [at the 3 New Passovers], because I have found my sheep [Passover victim] that was lost.'
7 I tell you that thus there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 righteous [ones] who have no need of repentance [] (Luke 15).
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12
What do you think? If a certain man [Word1 and Word2: Jesus not 'of you' because none of the saints in Matthew are 1NC] comes to have 100 sheep [Word1:
100 years of ELC saints in TCC2 under Bilhah, from 67Tishri-167Tishri. Word2:
First 100 years of ELC and HLC saints in TCC2, from 67Tishri-167Tishri.]
and one of them gets strayed [Word1: Any of the years with ELC saints stuck in TCC1. Word2: The first year of the HLC saints in TCC2 who were stuck under the administration of the sons of Bilhah,
166Tishri-167Tishri], will he not leave the 99 upon the mountains
[Word1 and Word2: The heavenly administrations of the 1AC, 2AC and 3AC] and set out on a search for the [one] that is straying?
13 And if he happens to find it [Word1: He does not find the ELC saints in TCC1 for the first few years until the manifestation of the presence at the end of the 4 year gap from 73Tishri to 77Tishri when they join TCC2. Word2: He does find the HLC saints in the year from 166Tishri to 167Tishri, the other 99 do not stray in Word2], I certainly tell you, he rejoices more over it than over the 99,
the [ones] that have not strayed.
14 Likewise it is not a desirable thing with my Father who is in heaven for one of these little [ones] [Helper covenant saints, sons of the HLC or ELC rather than the 1NC or 2NC]
to perish (Matthew 18).
3 Then he spoke this illustration to them, saying:
4 What man of you [Word1: Jesus out of all the 1NC saints who had been in TCC3 since 1904Tishri] with 100 sheep [Word1: 100 years of 1NC and 2NC saints in TCC3 until 2005Sivan14 when it became a false church], on losing one of them [],
will not leave the 99 behind in the desolate [place] and go for the [one] lost until he finds it?
5 And when he has found it he puts it upon his shoulders [Word1: As his head]
and rejoices.
6 And when he gets home [TCC4]
he calls his friends and his neighbours [Word1: Water baptised are friends of the bridegroom and neighbours are in the next temple,
the 2NC saints] together, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me [Word1:
At the Passover, fulfilling I will not eat or drink again until the Kingdom], because I have found my sheep [Word1: Any member of TCC3] that was lost.'
7 I tell you that thus there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 righteous [ones] who have no need of repentance [] (Luke 15).
Matthew has 3 symbolic meanings and Luke has two, both are governed by the Parallel Account Principle. So they both share the same Word Symbolism in the first word symbolic thread. The total noun (acting as a noun) count is:
Sheep plural (2)
Sheep singular (1)
Man (2)
Mountains (1)
In the Word symbolism 100 is compared to one, and one means one time. So we have 100 times of Christians. Likewise 'the 99' means 99 times. These 'times' can be years or months or days, as usual. In fact they are years, and the chronological impact of this parable in the word symbolisms is that in the 100th year of the 1NC saints of FDS3, the 2NC saints came along, and likewise in the 100th year of the ELC saints of FDS2 the HLC saints came along.