Michael Wilcock, in The Message of Luke (IVP, 1997 - part of the series The Bible Speaks Today) makes an interesting connection between the 3 parables told by Jesus in Luke 15, often referred to as the 'lost' parables. The parables are the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost (or prodigal) son.
Working from the assumption that "it seems unlikely that so fastidious a writer as Luke would narrate the third, or even the second, merely to underline the meaning of the first," (ibid. p. 149) Wilcock argues that characters of each of the parables represent different aspects of the Holy Trinity. Other parts of scripture refer to Jesus using the imagery of the great Shepherd caring for his sheep. Similarly, the father of the third parable can be none other than our own Father in heaven. Which leaves the middle parable, the parable of the lost coin.
The upshot is that the symbolic meanings often attached both to 'woman
and to 'lamp' elsewhere in Scripture may well be the meanings we are intended to see in this parable. The church in Old Testament and New is the Lord's bride, and as a community through which the Spirite reveals God's truth it is also a light; in the picture-book of Revelation the symbols of woman and light are both used to depict the people of God. If Luke 15:8-10 is meant to have this added significance, we may see in it the Spirit of God lighting the church's way as she sets about the divine work of seeking the lost.
- Michael Wilcock, The Message of Luke (IVP 1997, p. 152)
He goes on to quote Spurgeon as arguing that the second parable is necessary to understand the parables either side of it.
We have sometimes heard it said - here is the prodigal received as soon as he comes back, no mention being made of a Saviour who seeks and saves him. Is it possible to teach all truths in one single parable? Does not the first one speak of the shepherd seeking the lost sheep? Why need repeat what had been said before? It has also been said that the prodigal returned of his own free will, for there is not hint of the operation of a superior power upon his heart, it seems as if he himself spontaneously says, "I will arise, and go unto my Father." The answer is that the Holy Spirit's work had been clearly described in the second parable, and needed not to be introduced again. If you put the three pictures in a line, they represent the whole compass of salvation... yet each one is distinct from the other, and by itself instructive.
- C. H. Spurgeon, 'The Lost Silver Piece', quoted in The Message of Luke (IVP 1997, p. 153)
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