Who is the little one?

The One Who Is Lost—and the Good Shepherd Who Seeks

Kenneth E. Bailey is one of the writers whose works have helped me greatly in reading and understanding the Bible. I have read most of his books, and therefore what follows is not an attack on Bailey. It is simply a question that arose in my mind while reading his discussion of the good shepherd in Matthew 18:10–14. I raise it as a lay student of Scripture, because sometimes a question from outside the academic world can help us notice where an interpretation may be extending beyond the text.

Bailey’s discussion of Matthew 18:10–14 is rich and stimulating. He identifies the “little ones” as those whom the disciples must not despise and connects the strayed sheep with disciples who have wandered from the path (Bailey 2014, 187–88). The good shepherd goes in search of the one who has gone astray, and, if he finds it, rejoices over its recovery. Bailey then places this within the larger tradition of the good shepherd and connects it with the ministry of Jesus and the responsibility of his disciples.

I find much in this convincing. My question arises when Bailey moves from the “little ones” of Matthew 18 to other examples of people who are lost and need to be recovered. In particular, he brings in the prodigal son in Luke 15 and then tells the story of a drunken sailor who fell overboard from a ship during wartime. I wonder whether these examples fit the specific meaning of the “little ones” in Matthew 18, or whether they illustrate a broader theological principle that Bailey has drawn from the parable.

The distinction seems important.

Matthew begins with the warning:

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones.”

The shepherd story follows immediately. One of these little ones is represented by the sheep that has gone astray. The question is therefore not simply what should be done with any person who is lost, but what should be done with those whom Jesus has called “these little ones” and whom others might despise.

The Prodigal Son

That raises a question about the prodigal son.

The younger son in Luke 15 certainly becomes lost. He deliberately leaves his father’s household, takes his inheritance and squanders it. He eventually comes to himself, returns, and is received by his father. But was he a “little one” in the sense of Matthew 18? The story does not present him as a powerless or marginalised member of society whom others despise. He is a son in his father’s household. He voluntarily leaves it and later voluntarily returns.

There is obviously a profound connection between the two stories: something or someone is lost and then found. But does that mean that the person in Luke 15 can simply be identified with the “little one” in Matthew 18?

This is particularly worth asking because every parable has its own central movement. We can certainly compare one parable with another and discover a common theological theme. But when every element of one parable is transferred to another situation, there is a danger that the parable may become an allegory extending beyond its own textual and theological limits.

The Drunken Sailor

This question becomes even sharper with Bailey’s story of the drunken sailor.

The story is powerful. In 1942, according to Bailey’s account, a group of American Presbyterian missionaries and families were travelling by ship across the Atlantic. A drunken deckhand fell overboard. The ship was in an area where German submarines were present, and the vessel was observing blackout regulations. The captain nevertheless decided to illuminate the sea and search for the man. After a dangerous search, the sailor was found and rescued (Bailey 2014, 203–04).

Bailey imagines what happened afterwards. He says that surely there would have been a celebration, not because of the drunken sailor but because of the courageous captain who had risked everything to find one man. The officers would praise the captain for demonstrating his commitment to the welfare of every member of the crew regardless of rank.

Here I find myself asking a different question.

The captain certainly had a responsibility towards the sailor who had fallen into the sea. But he also had a responsibility towards everyone else entrusted to his command. By turning on powerful searchlights while enemy submarines might be nearby, he was not merely risking his own life. He was potentially placing the entire ship—crew and passengers—in danger.

Suppose the captain’s courageous search had succeeded in finding the sailor, but the German submarine had then detected the ship and sunk it. Suppose hundreds of people had died while the captain and the drunken sailor survived. Would we still make the same “fine speeches” praising the captain for demonstrating his deep commitment to the welfare of every member of the crew? (Bailey 2014, 204)

I am not questioning the value of the sailor’s life. Nor am I suggesting that a careless or drunken person has less right to be rescued. The question is about competing responsibilities. The captain’s responsibility was not only to the one person in the water. He also had a responsibility to all those who had entrusted themselves to his care.

This is where the story raises something larger than the question of rescue. It raises the question of whether the moral value of the one can automatically override the safety and welfare of the many.

This reminds me of the Titanic. Captain Edward Smith did remain aboard and died when the ship sank, but the precise circumstances of his final moments are uncertain and conflicting eyewitness accounts exist; the popular image of a captain deliberately locking himself in his cabin is not something that can safely be stated as established historical fact. (HISTORY) What is beyond dispute is that Smith died in the disaster rather than escaping in a lifeboat, and his conduct became part of the continuing debate about a captain’s responsibility towards those under his command. (HISTORY)

The contrast is significant. A captain does not have merely an individual relationship with one passenger or one crew member. He has a responsibility for the whole community entrusted to him.

This is also why I hesitate to use Bailey’s sailor story as a straightforward illustration of Matthew 18. Bailey’s story is really an illustration of costly effort to save one person. That is a legitimate and moving theme. But it does not necessarily establish anything about the identity of the “little ones” in Matthew 18.

The One and the Many

Nor does it settle the question of what happens when saving one person places many others at serious risk.

There is another reason I find this worth considering: our social context affects the way we hear these stories.

In a highly individualistic society, there is a natural tendency to celebrate the individual—the individual whose uniqueness, freedom and rights must be protected even when the interests of the larger group are involved. That does not mean individual rights are unimportant. They are important. But in many Asian societies, including India, the individual has traditionally been understood more strongly in relation to family, community and society. The question is not simply, “What is good for this individual?” but also, “What happens to the family and community because of this individual’s decision?”

I have raised a similar question elsewhere in relation to the interpretation of the parable traditionally called the “Prodigal Son”.¹ In that discussion I questioned the tendency to interpret the story primarily through the category of Western individualism. The biblical story itself certainly values the individual, but it also assumes a family and communal world in which the actions of an individual affect others.

The same caution seems appropriate here.

Bailey’s discussion is especially valuable because he asks us to take the one who has gone astray seriously. The shepherd does not say, “There are ninety-nine here; let the one go.” The one matters. That is an important biblical truth.

But there is another biblical truth that should not disappear: the ninety-nine also matter.

The question is therefore not whether we should care for one or care for many. A [Christian] community should care about both. The more difficult question is how the interests of the one and the many are to be held together when they appear to conflict.

The Ninety-Nine and the Shepherd’s Responsibility

Matthew 18 itself presents the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine to seek the one. Bailey is right to draw attention to the extraordinary nature of that action. But the parable does not tell us to construct from it a general rule that one individual’s interest must always take precedence over the welfare of everyone else. Nor does it ask us to imagine every person who makes a deliberate and irresponsible choice as one of the “little ones” whom Jesus describes.

This is where I would stop.

I do not want to diminish Bailey’s insight. On the contrary, his treatment of the passage has made me think more deeply about the value of the person who has gone astray and about the willingness of the good shepherd to seek that person at considerable cost.

My question is simply whether, in moving from the “little ones” of Matthew 18 to the prodigal son and then to the drunken sailor, we have moved from the particular message of the parable to a much broader theology of the lost individual (Bailey 2014, 202–03).

A Sociological Question

And perhaps that is where the discipline of biblical interpretation becomes especially important. Alongside the theological, historical and textual contexts, we should also ask about the sociological world presupposed by the text. Who are these people? What relationships do they have? What does the community owe the individual, and what does the individual owe the community? What happens to the many when exceptional attention is given to one?

The one is not worthless because there are ninety-nine.

But neither should the ninety-nine become invisible because one has gone astray.

That, for me as a lay student of Scripture, is the question Bailey’s discussion has left me with.

¹ For a related but distinct discussion of the parable of the prodigal son, see Dayanand Bharati, “Prodigal Song: Hoch’s Parable,” dayanandbharati.in, 13 June 2024, where I question Erna M. Hoch’s interpretation of the parable primarily through the category of individualism and emphasise the importance of its social and communal setting: https://dayanandbharati.in/prodigal-song-hochs-parable/.

Kenneth E. Bailey. The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament. Illinois: IVP Academic, 2014.

Ashram, September 13, 2026