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

epentance for the Jews and conversion for the Gentiles, their assertion, as pointedly stated at
the outset of this discussion, is not convincing in showing that repentance for Luke is used
only for Jewish people as already believers in God, and conversion for Gentiles. Seventhly,
Luke is primarily inclined to focus on the treatment of personalized conversion, rather than
the broad call to the conversion of a people or a nation in the Old Testament. 35 Even though
the apostolic preaching, 36
as well as John’s preaching, which consists of a demand for
repentance is primarily directed collectively to the crowd, individual stories of conversion are
all the more dominant and impressive in Acts. The following stories in Acts reveal this: The
Ethiopian eunuch (8:26-40), Paul (9:1-19; 22:6-16; 26:12-18), Cornelius (10:1-11:18), Lydia
(16:14-15), and the Philippian jailer (16:25-34). Lastly, the emphasis of conversion in the
Gospel of Luke is mainly placed on the concrete change of life by John’s preaching and Jesus’
teaching, in particular within one’s attitude towards possessions. Conversion is manifested in
good deeds (cf. Luke 3:8, 11, 13-14; 5:28; 8:1-3; 15:12-14, 29-30; 17:3-4; 19:2, 8).
Some works exploring conversion in Luke-Acts are subsequently treated at some length
so as to gain extensive understanding of conversion of Luke. Jon Nelson Bailey, first of all,
argues that accompanied by a life of faith and ethical righteousness, repentance is a change of
attitudes and actions as reorientation of one’s life with respect to response to the word of God.
Repentance, at the same time, contains embracing the community of faith as the true people
of God. For him, repentance is synonymous with conversion that puts its emphasis on
movement or reorientation as well as a result of repentance. Having surveyed the usage of
and in Old Testament, Jewish sources, works of Hellenistic history and
biography in Greco-Roman world, and works of Early Christianity, he comes to a conclusion
that depending on his Jewish background, Luke develops the idea of repentance in a way that
is particularly appropriate for his Hellenistic audience in a Christian community consisting of
Jews and Gentiles. By means of synthesizing and developing Jewish, Christian and Greek
ideas, Luke denotes repentance as fairly respectable in terms of intellectuality, morality, and
used in Jewish settings, namely, a technical term for a Jew who has transgressed the law of Israel. Ravens, Luke
and the Restoration of Israel, 155-56. But David Neale points out rightly the fact that sinners represent all who
are in need of God’s mercy. See Neale, None but the Sinners: Religious Categories in the Gospel of Luke, 193.
35. Navone, Themes of St. Luke, 45, argues that conversion in Luke is primarily set in eschatological conditions,
but occasionally put outside eschatological context, so as to indicate a conversion that is individual and partial.
See also Witherup, Conversion in the New Testament, 55, 58.
36. There are eight missionaries preaching in Acts, of which six are for the Jews (Acts 2:14-36, 38-39; 3:12-26;
4:8-12, 19-20; 5:29-32; 10:34-43; 13:16-41) and two for the Gentiles (Acts 14:14-17; 17:22-31). Calls for
repentance occur in three of the accounts of preaching to the Jews (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:30), and in two of that to
Gentiles (Acts14:15; 17:30).
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