the role of the lukan parables in terms of the purpose of luke's gospel

epentance in each parable. 4 Granted, his contention gives fresh insight into the
understanding of the six parables in Luke 15-18, but I see no evidence that there are hints of
issues of Lukan community related to the acceptance of sinners in these chapters, nor are
there signs in the parable that the debtors are compelled to pass on the reductions to the wider
populace, and that the master’s predicament in the parable represents that of the Pharisees. He
is inclined to read all the parables in ch. 15-18 in the light of the issue of the acceptance of
sinners in Lukan communty, identifying the division between Pharisees and tax-collectors
and sinners with a quarrel of Jewish Christian and Gentile God-fearing on the grounds of J.T.
Sanders and P.F. Esler’s contention. 5
On the other hand, Bowen views the unifying element of the five parables in ch. 15-16 as
the word , that appears at the climax of the story in the series, and that represents the
kingdom of God. The common message among the five parables is that admission into the
kingdom of God is only by means of gracious invitation, not by means of one own actions or
personal status. For Bowen the latter part of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in which the
elder son scorns the unmerited invitation, provides in fact the transition for us to understand
the Parable of the Unjust Steward. Even though the steward in the parable achieved his goal,
“eternal tents,” he, Bowen says, fails to obtain what he tried to earn, since what he acquires is
6
solely a temporary, perishable abode, according to an ironical reading in v. 9. However, in
the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the word in vv. 6, 8 represents simply the place for
celebration or the stage for the story rather than an image of the kingdom. What is more, the
focus of the return of the younger son, has more to do with the bosom of his father than
4. Ronald A. Piper, “Social Background and Thematic Structure in Luke 16,” in ed., F. Van Segbroeck, The Four
Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (3 vols, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1992), 2:1637-62, here
1641-46. He argues that although in the parable, the primary audience are obviously designated as “disciples” in
v. 1, the duality of audience, as v. 14 shows, may allude to an intra-church problem, as 15: 1-2 shows the double
audience in a sharp contrast. In this respect his contention is more convincing than Bailey’s argument that the
shift in audience is intentionally ambiguous for the message is directed at the disciples and Pharisees. Bailey,
Poet and Peasant, 108.
5. J.T. Sanders argues that the Pharisees in Luke are Christian Pharisees, not non-Christian, concluding that
these hypocrites are not true members of the Christian. J.T. Sanders, “The Pharisees in Luke-Acts,” in ed., D.E.
Groh and R. Jewett, The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Saunders (Lanham, Md: University Press of
America, 1985), 141-88, here 161, 177-81, 187-88. With Lukan community, the community of Luke, P.F. Esler
claims, composed of a great deal of Jews and Gentile God-fearers. And the composition of Luke centers on an
ardent desire to present Christianity as the legitimate development of Judaism. Esler, Community and Gospel in
Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lukan Theology (SNTSMS, 57, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1987), 69.
6. C. Edward Bowen, “The Parable of the Unjust Steward Oikos as the Interpretative Key,” ExpTim 112 (9,
2001), 314-315.
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