Luke 15:6

He calleth together his friends and neighbours. — The recurrence of the two words so soon after Luke 14:12 is suggestive. There are times when we do well to recognise the natural and social ties that bind man and man. Chiefly is it right to do so when we make them sharers in our own spiritual life, and raise and purify their life by calling on them to sympathise, not with our sufferings only, but with our purer and nobler joys. In its bearing upon our Lord’s own work we may think of His “friends and neighbours” as being the disciples whom He had chosen; we may think also of “the angels of God,” and the spirits of the just made perfect, who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth.