This passage has three seemingly distinct teachings — parable of the shrewd manager, whether the Law and Prophets stopped with Yokhanan the Baptizer and a “one-liner” on divorce — but all of them as well as the parable that follows of the rich man and Lazar deal with one topic: God as Master or wealth as Master.
This chapter covers a central theme via the interrelated parables of the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son: The Son of God was sent to “find” and “bring back” the “lost sheep” of Israel. With the soon approach of the annual Lamb Selection Day for Passover — 10th day of the first month of God’s calendar — it’s fitting to note God’s “tale of three lambs” in Luke 15 and throughout Scripture
At the beginning of a chapter with three parables about God’s seeking to bring back to the Kingdom of God those who are “lost,” Yeshua demonstrated how God makes the “unholy” “holy.”
We are in danger of making God’s name common and of no repute — i.e., “taking it in vain” — if we reject those who He is calling to Himself just because they don’t have the same understanding we have.
Yeshua’s schooling of a Pharisee member of Israel’s ruling council on allowable actions on Shabbat seems disconnected from the parables that follow in Luke 14. Yet they all are threaded together with learning God’s view on justice, compassion and mercy then honoring God through lifelong commitment to those principles of the kingdom of Heaven.
Not honoring God by seeking that change of “glasses” for seeing the world — and seeing the One through Whom the change would come — doomed much of Israel to be scattered and regathered repeatedly.
Early rabbinical literature echoed the imagery of Yeshua’s description of Herod as “that fox.” There may not be a coincidence that Yeshua then refers to the love of God for rebellious Israel as a hen caring for her chicks. Some have claimed the “house left to you desolate” in this passage refers to Israel in favor of “the church,” but similar parables related by prophet Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) suggest otherwise.
There are parallels between the “punch lines” of the parables of the narrow door, narrow gate and 10 virgins. Some think the key to the oil in the 10 virgins parable is the Spirit, and some say it’s the Torah. Rather, it’s knowing God, which involves equal measures of both Torah and God’s Spirit.
Yeshua heals a woman with a back deformity, but the condition may have also been symbolic of the spiritually oppressed. Kingdom parables of the mustard seed and yeast in dough teach that God will build the kingdom from humble, oppressed beginnings to become greater than any superpower.