DAILY TEXT, Today's Saturday November 5, 2022, Your brother was lost and has been found (Luke 15:32).

DAILY TEXT, Saturday November 5,  Your brother was lost and has been found (Luke 15:32).

Let's Examine the Scriptures Every Day 2022

Saturday November 5

Your brother was lost and has been found (Luke 15:32).

Who can help search for the inactive? The entire congregation, family members, elders, pioneers, and publishers alike. Do we have an inactive friend or family member? Have we found one inactive in public or house-to-house preaching? Let us explain to him that, if he wishes to be visited, we will gladly pass on his contact information to the elders of the congregation, always in accordance with the corresponding regulations of our country. An elder named Thomas says, “First, I ask several brothers and sisters if they know where the inactive now live. Or I ask the publishers if they remember any brothers who no longer attend the meetings. Later, when I visit an inactive brother or sister, I ask about their children or relatives. Some idlers took their children to meetings, and these may have become publishers. They, too, can be helped to return to Jehovah.” w20.06 24 para. 1; 25 paras. 6, 7.

Why did the woman mentioned in Luke 15:8-10 search so hard for the coin she had lost?

Finding those who want to return to Jehovah involves searching hard. In the Gospel of Luke, we read a parable in which Jesus tells of a woman looking for a valuable item that she has lost: a drachma coin. The central point of this story is how hard he tries to find her (read Luke 15:8-10).

Apparently, in the time of Jesus, on the day Jewish women got married, some mothers gave them a set of 10 drachma coins. The woman in the parable may have lost one of these silver coins. Assuming that she has fallen to the ground, she lights an oil lamp and looks around it, but cannot find it. The lamp may not provide enough light to locate the coin. So she decides to carefully sweep the entire house. And at last, in the midst of the dust that she collects, she sees something that shines: it is her valuable coin! Jesus explains that she is so relieved and happy that he calls her friends and her neighbors to tell them the good news.

Why does it take effort to search for the inactive?

Jesus' parable teaches us that finding something that has been lost requires effort. The same thing happens when looking for the inactive. They may have been out of touch with the congregation for years. Perhaps now they live in another area, where the brothers do not know them. But surely at this very moment some of them want to return to Jehovah. They want to serve him again together with his brothers, but they need us to help them.

As we read in Luke 15:17-24, how did the father treat his repentant son?

What qualities must we show if we want to help those who want to return to Jehovah? Let's see what lessons the parable of the lost son teaches us (read Luke 15:17-24). Jesus says that the son ends up coming to his senses and decides to return to his house. The father runs to meet him and hugs him lovingly to assure him that he still loves him. The young man has many regrets and thinks that he no longer deserves to be called his son. The father is moved to see that his son opens her heart to him and is repentant. So he organizes a banquet and orders that they give him clothes of the best quality. In this way, he shows her that he does not receive her as one of his workers, but as a beloved member of the family.