Radical Patronage in Luke-Acts‪.‬

Luke-Acts is often characterized in terms of God's "preferential option for the poor" as epitomized in Jesus' inaugural sermon on Isaiah 61 in Luke 4:18-19. A quick read-through of Luke-Acts confirms that the narrative is often critical of "the rich." This engagement with the theme of wealth and poverty begins with the Magnificat (1:51-52) and moves on to include such well-known texts as the woes against the rich in the beatitudes (6:24), the special Lukan parable of the Rich Fool (12:13-21), the first/last saying of 13:31, (1) the special Lukan parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (16:19-31), and the punishment of the cautious property owners Ananias and Sapphira in Acts (5:1-11). (2) While the emergence of Liberation theology in the 1970s may have been the impetus for a re-examination of the economic import of Luke among biblical scholars, a recognition of the scathing critique of privilege in Luke-Acts has long since traveled beyond these circles. (3) The advancement of "the poor" at the expense of "the rich" by Luke has become an accepted reading of Luke-Acts. (4)