Why are Jesus' sayings about the poor concentrated in Luke? I've been researching Jesus' thoughts on poverty and the needy, and I've noticed that Luke's Jesus makes many more pronouncements concerning the poor than the others. What, if anything, do scholars say about this?

Edit: I'm interested in knowing what any scholar has to say about the preponderance of mentions in Luke. If you know of any scholar who is saying anything about it, please let me know.
Attending to the interest in "what any scholar has to say" about teaching on poverty (and, necessarily I suppose, wealth -- the two themes tend to come together) in Luke...


For general context, see Martin Hengel, Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of a Social History of Early Christianity (Fortress, 1998). Hengel was one of the foremost scholars of the Second Temple Judaism and nascent Christianity, but known as a New Testament specialist.
More specifically, the broad social context for Luke's writing is set in the volume edited by Jerome Neyrey, The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (Hendrickson, 1991). None of the chapters are directly on poverty/wealth, but lots about social location which informs this theme.
And more directly yet, see Walter Pilgrim's recently reprinted book: Good News to the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts (1981; reprinted Wipf &amp; Stock, 2011). It has been widely cited by later scholars.
A published doctoral dissertation (Glasgow), covers this theme in some detail: Kyoung-Jin Kim, Stewardship and Almsgiving in Luke's Theology (Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
In shorter compass, here are some articles and/or chapters that address this theme:


a starting point for many recent discussions was provided by J.R. Donahue's survey, "Two Decades of Research on the Rich and Poor in Luke-Acts", in Justice and the Holy: Essays in Honor of Walter Harrelson, ed. by D.A. Knight and P.J. Paris (Scholars, 1989), pp. 129-144. [no online sources I can find]
Joel Green, excellent orientation in a section on "The Economy of the Kingdom" in his (very readable) The Theology of the Gospel of Luke (Cambridge, 1995), pp.  112ff.
Peter Liu, "Did the Lucan Jesus Desire Voluntary Poverty of his Followers?", Evangelical Quarterly 64 (1992): 291-317.
Tim Kelley, "Renounce my Possessions? What does Luke 14.33 Mean?", Leaven 6/3.8 (1998): 131-135 [a more popular presentation, but still drawing on scholarly sources]
Thomas E. Phillips, "Reading Recent Readings of Issues of Wealth and Poverty in Luke and Acts", Currents in Biblical Research 1/2 (2003): 231-269 [this one would be a good place to start, in fact]



While that should be enough to provide an orientation to the scholarly discussion, the "Why?" question remains. And that's difficult to answer.

Many note the clear context of poverty out of which Jesus' ministry emerges: this is the clear signal of the offering of "two turtle doves" provided in Luke 2:24 (compare Leviticus 12:8). Not only does Luke use some distinctive Greek vocabulary for "poverty", he uses the standard Greek term (πτωχός = ptōchos, the "beggarly poor"), with ten occurrences, double that of either Matthew or Mark. And the general theme runs into Acts, too, so it is clearly a pronounced theme in Luke's writing, although obviously shared in many ways with the other gospels, Paul, and James in particular.