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

means to give the steward time for the finishing
touches, so that his master can pass it over to the new manager to be employed. To put it
more exactly, the steward, as Bailey contends, is instantly dismissed and all that remains is
for him to hand the account books to his master, and is not in progress or in the midst of
dismissal. 30
The steward, in his soliloquy, foresees the desperate future life which he might face, and
reveals his plan to handle it. Lygre claims that, in comparison with the prodigal son’s
soliloquy, the steward does not voice any remorse in his soliloquy though it is the most
logical place to express it. In the light of this one deduces then that the charges are filed
unjustly by the owner, if anything, the accusations are put for preservation of the owner’s
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honour. He fails, however, to grasp that the soliloquy is not a literary device merely for the
expression of a character’s straightforward remorse, but also to reveal a character’s inner
thinking to audiences or readers. On the contrary, the fact that the steward in his soliloquy
foresees a most miserable future (apart from the possibility of seeking new employment)
implies that the charges are just. If his dismissal because of the events involved in his
wrongdoing becomes known to the other tenants or merchants who have the capacity to hire
him, presumably none of them would hire him as a manager for themselves. Digging work is
beyond his physical strength 32 and his pride cannot bring him to beg as noted in Sir 40:29, 33
therefore, he has resolved to plan for his safe future. His plan becomes clear as the story
proceeds: If he grants favours to the debtors in the form of debt reductions, when he is
removed from his stewardship, they may welcome him into their homes. Even though it
30. Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 97.
31. Lygre, “Of What Charges?” 25-26. Lygre argues that the reason why the steward did not pursue legal
procedures was that it was useless because, according to Fitzmyer’s suggestion, persons holding subservient
positions did not have proper recourse to legal action in Roman-occupied rural areas. Fitzymyer, The Semitic
Background of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 175.
32. Apart from digging in agriculture as manual labour which audiences can envision easily, Beavis’ contention
is excessive conjecture that digging means to be sent away to do hard labour in a stone quarry. Even Herzog
argues that for the steward digging means not only to drop out the class of retainers into the class of expendables,
but to face a death from malnutrition from which the class of expendables generally suffers. Beavis, “Ancient
Slavery,” 49; Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, 242. Against Landry and May’s contention that the
steward’s soliloquy is a frank, sober assessment of his (in)abilities, not as a expression of his unwillingness to
mingle with the lower classes, if anything, his attitude here, as Scott has pointed out, makes remote from the
audiences who are composed of people to have largely to live by physical labor, thereby he voices that he want
to continuously live in the world of the wealthy, even after being fired. Landry and May, “Honor Restored,” 300;
Via, The Parables: Their Literary and Existential Dimension, 161; Breech, The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic
Voice of the Historical Man, 105-106; Kloppenborg, “The Dishonored Master,” 491; Scott, Hear Then the
Parable, 263; Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, 158.
33. Sir 40:29. “It is better to die than to beg.”
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