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

and maintaining sociability and the bonds of a common identity. 11 For the Pharisees, the
common table was especially a means to make a distinction between the holy (themselves),
and the impure (sinners or tax-collectors), in a world in which people are constantly in danger
of being defiled. In particular, they believed that contact with ‘sinners’ not only could make
them impure, but also shared their world, although the label of ‘sinners’ has a quiet
fluctuation. 12 Such attitudes are well attested in the Mishnah and other rabbinic sources. 13
These very attitudes caused the Pharisees and scribes to become indignant over Jesus’
behaviour that has the table fellowship with the tax-collectors and sinners. In this respect, the
parables in ch. 15 are clearly designed to confront such an attitude.
To whom does Jesus tell the parables in ch. 15? According to v. 3, to ‘them’ Jesus told a
parable. In the first two verses, we could just as well see ‘them’ as a reference to tax-
collectors and sinners, as well as the Pharisees and scribes, though, at a glance, given the
straightforward contents of the three parables, Jesus seems to direct his stories to the former
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rather than the latter. It is meaningful to look at the three parables from each group’s point
of view, since there are extreme contrasts between the groups of characters in the
introductory verses: Those that respond positively to Jesus and gather to hear him, and on the
other hand, those who react negatively to Jesus and grumble about Jesus receiving sinners
and eating with them.
The parable of the Lost Sheep appears in both Matthew and Luke. Even though there is
crucial similarity in the two versions, interpreters find many more prominent differences
between Matthew and Luke. The parable, above all, functions as an exhortation to instruct the
church’s leaders to be responsible for the flock, insomuch as Matthew applies the parable to a
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church context. According to statistics on these two stories, of the sixty-five words in
Matthew and the eighty-nine words in Luke, the two gospels share only fourteen common
words. 16 The argument as to which is the more original remains contentious without a certain
consensus. 17
It is not right that Matthew’s is the more original on the grounds that the parable
11. H. Moxnes, “Meals and the New Community in Luke,” Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok 51 (1986), 158-67; Jerome
H. Neyrey, The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (Peabody, Massachusetts; Hendrickson
Publishers, 1991), 364.
12. J. Neusner, “Two Pictures of the Pharisees: Philosophical Circle or Eating Club,” AusBR 64 (1982), 525-38.
13. m. Demai 2.2-3; Lam. Rab. 4.3-4; 1QSa 2.2-21; Sir 13:17; m. Hagigah 2.7; b. Pesahim 49b.
14. J.J. Kilgallen, The Twenty Parables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (SubBib 32, Roma, Editrice Pontificio
Istituto Biblico, 2008), 97.
15. Forbes, The God of Old: The Role of the Lukan Parables in the Purpose of Luke’s Gospel, 113.
16. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 99.
17. For the priority of the Matthean version, see R. Bultmann, History, 171; B. Smith, The Parables of the
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