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

2. The Friend at Midnight (11:5-8)
2-1. The Literary Context of the Parable
The parable of the Friend at Midnight lies in the context of an extended presentation on
prayer (11:1-13), framed by three parts: the Lord’s Prayer (11:1-4), which is different from
Matthew’s, the Friend at Midnight (11:5-8), with which we are dealing here, and ‘Asking the
Father’ (11:9-13) which focus on God’s faithfulness to response. The emphasis throughout
this section (11:1-13) is on the assurances of a response in God’s nature that He is faithful in
his response, and in the father-son relationship that the Lord’s Prayer and the last verse,
‘Asking the Father’, are linked by a reference to a father. In comparison with Matthew (Matt.
6:5-8, 7:7-11), D.R. Catchpole argues that the parable belongs to Q material, recovering an
earlier pre-Lucan form of the parable and removing v. 8a as Luke’s redactional form of the
parable. While with v. 8a the parable is about persistence in prayer, like the parable of the
unjust judge (18:1-8), without v. 8a the parable is simply about answer to prayer. 1 This
contention related to Q material, however, has not won widespread support. 2
A number of affinities have been noted between the parable of the Friend at Midnight and
the parable of the Judge and the Widow (18:1-8). The most obvious point of comparison is
that there is a striking verbal similarity between both: “Do not cause me trouble” in 11:7, and
“Because this widow causes me trouble” in 18:5. The person to whom the petition is brought
is, or may be, at first reluctant, but the petition is eventually granted. There are, however
striking differences in a frame of the story and the content of the petition. While the Friend at
Midnight is framed as a rhetorical question needing interpretive comment, the parable of the
3
Judge and the Widow is a self-contained story needing no interpretive comment. The
petition in 11:5-8 is concerned with the need for bread urgently, but in 18:1-8 the concern is
with the need for vindication during a long period of waiting. Given these differences, it may
lead to a faulty interpretation to construe 11:5-8 in light of 18:1-8. 4
2-2. The Analysis of the Parable
1. D.R. Catchpole, “Q and ‘the Friend at Midnight’ (Luke 11:5-8/9),” JTS 34 (1983), 407-424.
2. Those who claim that Lucan and Matthaean Sondergut belong to Q believe that it happened in their use of Q,
the same way that both Matthew and Luke omitted material in using their Marcan source. The theory makes
material hypotheses more complex.
3. Forbes, The God of Old: The Role of the Lukan Parables in the Purpose of Luke’s Gospel, 73.
4. Construing the parable as persistence in prayer in light of 18:1-8 and 11:9-13 is a mainstream these days.
However, given the above some differences, it can lead to the wrong conclusion.
36