Tonight, another insight from the bottomless, fetid pit of my wisdom.

I think of this insight as my own, but that’s probably just the result of ignorance. Likely thousands of real theologians said it before I did.

But I never read it in their books. I worked it out with my own tiny, smooth-surfaced brain.

So I think of it as my own.

Is there any saying that’s brought more comfort to sinners than this: “If you had been the only sinner in the world, Jesus would have died to save you”?

I suppose it’s a cliché, but I like it. It speaks to me.

And yet it always bothered me. Because it didn’t seem to actually rise from any biblical text. And I don’t take anything as absolute truth that isn’t either found in Scripture or plainly derived from a clear reading of Scripture.

And then I figured it out. Luke 15:3-7: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

And just down the page, Luke 15:8-10: “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?”

The point of these parables is not (I believe), as some will think, that everyone will be saved. The point is the concern of the Searcher for each individual who is lost.

In other words, if I had been the only sinner in the world, Jesus would have died to save me.

My apologies to everybody who came up with this first (probably in preaching on Luke 15).

But it’s a comfort to me.

Have a good weekend.