Articles
The Parable of the Lost (Bit)coin
There once was a man who was cleaning out his office and tossed a computer hard drive in the trash. Unknown to him at the time was the fact that the hard drive contained the only copy of his 51-character private key used to access his Bitcoin wallet. Months later he realized that his wallet was worth $800 million. One can only imagine the sheer panic that engulfed him in the face of such a loss. Desperate to find his discarded hard drive in the city landfill, the man set out to find the proverbial “needle in a haystack.”
The city that controlled the landfill, however, was not sympathetic to his plight. They stonewalled his efforts to comb the dump though he offered to fully fund the excavation and share 25% of the recovered Bitcoin value with the city council. He filed suit against the city, but a judge rejected his case.
As if the matter could not get any worse, the city is now planning to permanently close the landfill. In despair, the man commented on his “needle in the haystack” odyssey: “This needle is very, very, very valuable – $800 million – which means I’m willing to search every piece of hay in order to find the needle.”
Morals of the story:
1. Don’t be absent-minded over something worth billions of $.
2. Don’t have singular access to something of extreme value.
3. Don’t ruin your life over what might have been.
By the way: This is actually a true story (see Fox Business, 2/13/25). The name of the poor chap is James Howells of the U.K.
Jesus tells a parable with a similar motif of loss: the woman who lost one of her ten coins (Lk 15:8-10). This parable is one of a trio in which Jesus is emphasizing the value of a human soul. His target audience is the scribes and Pharisees who murmured, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2). Their attitude may leave us wondering how people could be so callous, but misguided theology and class division had created a stratified society wherein the poor, diseased and otherwise unfortunate were seen as cursed by God (cf. Jn 9:1-2, 34). So entrenched was this prejudice that when “tax collectors and sinners” were drawn to Jesus, the self-righteous Pharisees took offense instead of rejoicing in their spiritual responsiveness. Jesus’ parables in Luke 15 follow a progression:
A 1% loss of property – Lk 15:3-7. In this illustration Jesus highlights a man who loses one of his 100 sheep. Sheep were a valuable commodity in Jewish culture, so much so that the man risks leaving the 99 sheep “in the wilderness, and [goes] after the one which is lost.” One sheep would give multiple shearings of wool; one ewe could produce other sheep; one ram could impregnate multiple ewes; one sheep may give its life for feeding hungry humans. Jesus pointed out other instances wherein sheep were considered valuable (pulling one out of a pit on the Sabbath – Mt 12:11; a shepherd risking his life to protect the sheep – Jn 10:11-15).
But Jesus then equates the loss and subsequent finding of a wayward sheep with the restoration of a human being to God: “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (Lk 15:7). The Pharisees, secure in their assumption that they are favored by God, do not understand lostness. The sinful woman understood it, but Simon did not (Lk 7:36-50). A lost soul is so terrible that heaven rejoices when one is found.
A 10% loss of funds – Lk 15:8-10. A sheep is potential income that requires money and energy to maintain. A silver coin is pure asset, and the loss of one-tenth of one’s assets, regardless of the total portfolio, would be a huge blow (calculate your available cash resources and consider losing ten-percent of it). Ouch. Jesus envisions a woman who has ten silver coins and loses one, “and when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’” (Lk 15:9). Again, Jesus pulls back the heavenly curtain to drive the point home: “Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (15:10). When men resent what angels rejoice in, they are standing on dangerous ground.
A loss of life – Lk 15:11-32. Jesus’ parables crescendo from lesser losses to the loss of a soul – the “prodigal” (“characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure” – Webster’s Online) son. Jesus’ methodology in this chapter and in other teaching is known as qal wahomer (Hebrew) or a fortiori (Latin), which draws a stronger conclusion from a lesser one. Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat sin; the younger son who demands his portion of inheritance before his father actually dies, abandons his family, blows his money on partying and wastefulness and ends up slopping pigs (unclean to a Jew) is not an attractive or sympathetic figure. The older brother may justifiably feel harshly toward his younger sibling.
However, the parable highlights the repentance of the foolish youth and his willingness to honestly assess his mistakes (“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants” – 15:18-19). He returns to the father he has wronged and hurt, and the father’s reaction echoes the man who found his sheep and the woman who found her coin: “His father saw him and had compassion, ran and fell on his neck and kissed him … [and] said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here … and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’” (15:20-24).
The fault of the older son is not his resentment of his younger sibling’s initial profligacy but rather his failure to embrace him upon his repentance. The inability to appreciate the value of a soul spawned by arrogantly considering oneself to be faultless before God and thus not in need of mercy is the fruit of self-righteousness.
But back to the unfortunate Mr. Howells, Jesus has another word of wisdom for him: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven … for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt 6:19-21). Mr. Howells may dedicate the rest of his life to finding that lost hard drive, but one can only hope that he will spend a fraction of that same energy on his soul and finding its eternal destiny.
