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

and Nunc Dimittis (2:29-32). Furthermore, the following cases cogently bolster the fact that
prayer is intimately involved in decisive and important moments in the progress of the
salvation history: The baptism of Jesus (3:21-22), the selection of the Apostles (6:12-16),
Peter’s confession and Jesus’ first suffering prediction (9:18-22), the transfiguration of Jesus
(9:28-36), the return of the seventy missionaries (10:21-22), the prayer at the Mount of Olives
(22:39-46), the early Christian community’s prayer (1:14), Pentecost (2:1-4), at the selection,
appointment and commission for leadership (1:24-25; 6:6; 13:3; 14:23), and the guidance for
missionary work (9:10-12; 10:3-4, 9-16; 30-31; 11:5; 22:17-21). Just as Jesus struggles to
know and fulfill God’s will, so Jesus’ disciples and followers, therefore seek to know the
purpose and plan of God and to commit themselves to its service at and through prayer.
The faith-life of the Christian in the Lukan parables shows perspectives of life as the right
way that Christians should go, but it goes further in that it serves the redemptive purpose of
God. That is to say, through their faith-life, Christians not only align themselves with God’s
purpose, but also serve to accomplish it. In short, the Lukan parables play a vital role in
serving the advancement of God’s saving aim as the purpose of the Gospel of Luke.
In summary, God’s plan of salvation toward a Christian includes a newly-changed life in
the whole realm of one’s life in accordance with Jesus’ life and teaching. Accordingly, when
Christians live up to Jesus’ teaching of the Christians life minutely presented in the Lukan
parables, it is congruent with God’s redemptive purpose, and also concretizes the God’s
redemptive purpose within their life. The Lukan parables place a special emphasis on the
Christian life in the motif of a new Exodus and the Way in the travel narrative. 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 simply responding to his gospel and positively accepting Jesus as savior. What is
more, the Christian life concretely presented in the Lukan parables further serves to
accomplish God’s saving purpose. The Christian life which involves concern toward the
marginalized, the proper use of possessions and prayer, ultimately helps to accomplish God’s
redemptive purpose. If Christians accept the physically, economically and ethnically weak, as
taught in the Lukan parables, then they come to serve as the good news to the poor that is
announced in Jesus’ inaugural sermon at Nazareth, and help to accomplish of it. Furthermore,
the proper use of possessions for the poor and God in line with God’s will, as shown in the
Lukan parables, promotes God’s redemptive purpose. As taught in the Lukan parables about
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