Matthew 18:12

Goeth. See on Luke 15:4-7. God has taken the initiative in effecting man’s salvation. Salvation consists, not in man’s search for God, but in God’s search for man. Human reasoning sees in religion nothing more than human attempts to find peace of soul and to solve the mystery of existence, to find a solution to the difficulties and uncertainties of life. It is true that deep within the human heart there is a longing for these things, but man of himself can never find God. The glory of the Christian religion is that it knows a God who cares for man so much that He left everything else in order to “seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

Into the mountains. The picture is of a shepherd camping with his sheep in the high upland meadows in the summertime.

Is gone astray. Gr. planad, “to go astray,” “to wander,” or “to lead into error.” Our word “planet” is from the related Greek word planetes, meaning “a wanderer” (see Jude 13). The planets of the solar system were given this name because they appear to “wander” about, among the apparently “fixed” stars.