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

time, it is a phase affirming God’s saving purpose. By means of features which only the
parable bears, the Lukan parables portray frankly a range of ambiguous and contradictory
values found in the very familiar details of ordinary life, and reverse and subvert the
audience’s world, as well as challenging them to a new life. In so doing, the Lukan parables
effectively help God’s redemptive purpose to be realized in the Christian life. In other words,
the Christians who were redeemed should live up to their new life in every area of life,
according to Jesus’ life and teaching. Through the Lukan parables, Luke fervently desires that
his readers embody and realize the redemptive purpose of God within them through the faith
life concretely presented in the Lukan parables, beyond merely accepting Jesus as savior and
positively responding to his Gospel.
3-2. The Role of the Lukan parables as a service in accomplishing God’s redemptive purpose
God’s saving project necessarily involves the collusion of human actors under His direction
and initiation. The realization of God’s purpose is made, not only through the ministries of
Jesus (his life, death, and exaltation), but also through the commissioned ministries of Jesus’
followers and their life of faith. In this respect, the faith-life of Christians which is most
effectively described in the Lukan parables ultimately serves to accomplish God’s redemptive
purpose.
The Christian life in their relationship with their neighbours, as has already been observed
in the previous chapter, must be primarily presented as love and forgiveness. At the home of a
leader of the Pharisees (esp. Luke 14:12-14) and in the Great Feast (Luke 14:15-24), Jesus
teaches to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to the banquet. In a similar vein,
the three parables about God’s joy over the recovery of the lost among his people (Luke 15:1-
31), show how Jesus intends to rebuke the Pharisees and scribes over their attitude toward his
acceptance of sinners, and to instruct them about what their attitude toward sinners should be.
In the Good Samaritan (10:25-37), Jesus makes all the more plain the true sense of love for
neighbour with the two greatest commandments. Beyond the boundaries of all ethnic groups
and enemies, Christians should show love to those as different from themselves as Samaritans
are from Jews, since they qualify as neighbours. Most importantly, the Christian’s love and
concern toward the marginalized ultimately serve as the good news to the poor which is
announced by Jesus’ in his inaugural sermon at Nazareth. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
305