Between the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7) and the more popular story of the prodigal son (15:11-32), one can find the parable of the lost coin. In just two verses, Jesus tells a story about a woman who has 10 coins but loses one of them, paralleling the shepherd of the previous parable who has 100 sheep but loses one. He describes God and his angels as rejoicing at the repentance of a single sinner by having the woman celebrate finding her misplaced coin, inviting her friends and neighbors to share in her joy and relief. The brevity of the passage touches on crucial matters, with the simplicity of the parable making it even easier to realize how it relates to other doctrines taught in the book of Luke and elsewhere. Some of these issues are secondary to the most predominant focus, yet they are still acknowledged or brushed up against. In full, here is the entire parable and the explanation Jesus himself offers immediately afterward.
Luke 15:8-10--"'Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, "Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin." In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'"
It is true that not all aspects of parables would have to be logically or Biblically valid outside of figurative meaning in the context of what even Jesus himself presents as a fictional or hypothetical story. Even so, note that the parable centers on a woman owning her own money, a form of property. If the metaphor is supposed to correspond to cultural practices of the time and region, then clearly women historically had property in Israelite society. If the metaphor is supposed to align with literal Biblical moral teachings, then clearly it is not evil on Judeo-Christianity for a woman to have her own property (as the Torah affirms, which will be addressed below). Also, the gender of the woman's friends are not specified, though it is both logically possible and Biblically permissible to have very psychologically and physically intimate friendships with the opposite gender without any sexual or romantic feelings, and even if these feelings are present, all involved can still be close, genuine friends.
These matters are tangential to the primary intention of the parable in a sense but nonetheless important. In no way does Luke 15 contradict any sexism concerning money and broader property (or friendship) prescribed by God in the Torah because there is no such thing. Deuteronomy 15:12-15 even requires that female servants receive property upon being set free as with male servants. Numbers 27 commands that daughters not be excluded from an inheritance just because there are no sons. Leviticus 12 and 15 as well as Numbers 5 and 6 prescribe that women offer their own animal sacrifices, with Numbers mandating that women bring the same animals as men for the same sins [1]. Moreover, Numbers 5:5-7 prescribes that women make restitution if they sin in a way deserving of this penalty (theft is the example in these verses). Unless women had their own animals or income, it would not be possible for them to bring sacrifices or make restitution. More than a few coins or the means to earn them is directly allowed for both men and women in Yahweh's perfect Torah laws (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Psalm 19:7). A woman owning coins in the parable corresponds to very literal rights and obligations women Biblically have not as women, but as humans.
Likewise, the delight God has over the repentance of each individual sinner is affirmed as literal, or else the entire parable of the lost coin is hollow in its context. Jesus reinforces the literality of this point with as much clarity as the fallible contructs of human language can convey in verse 10. Yahweh is not like his prophet Jonah, who bubbles with anger when the people of Nineveh repent and therefore are not killed (Jonah 3-4). He takes no pleasure in even the deserved death of the wicked for their sin (Ezekiel 33:11), either their death in this world or the second death of annihilation in hell (Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:11-15). When the wicked man or woman repents and turns to God for forgiveness, "he will freely pardon" (Isaiah 55:7). Sin does not go unpunished forever, but while someone is still in conscious existence, even while in hell before they are burned to death [2], there is always the hope that they will be saved by the God who wants none to perish (2 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:8-9) if only they repent while they still can.
The central purpose of the parable of the lost coin, as obviously pro-woman and supportive of female property ownership it is on its own and in connection with the true doctrines of the Torah, is not the value of women--who are not greater than men, but equal to them. Though these issues are of extreme logical and Biblical importance, the main purpose of the parable is to communicate the great depth of the divine joy when an individual turns from his or her sin and thus from the path toward permanent death (Matthew 7:13-14) to eternal life (Ezekiel 33:12-20, Romans 2:6-8, 6:23). Gender is irrelevant to the nature of sin both on the part of the victim (for instance, see the repeated emphasis within Exodus 21), if there is a victim for a given offense, and on the part of the one doing the evil (for instance, see Leviticus 20:15-18, 27) because the actions are the same. If the Bible denied these truths, it would be in error, since this equality is correct by strict logical necessity. But while gender equality is a vital part of the foundation of any logically possible moral system, and while repentance is contingent on there being sin to begin with and thus cannot be more philosophically important than the core nature of sin, Luke 15's parable of the lost coin focuses first and foremost on how God does not reject the contrite sinner.
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