This verse finishes a question Jesus began in Luke 11:5: "Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?" Jesus asked His listeners to picture themselves in an awkward need, asking a favor at the worst possible hour. Barnes says Jesus was showing that, to obtain the blessing, "it was necessary to persevere in asking for it," and he calls midnight "a time when it would be most inconvenient for his friend to help him." Gill says the design of the parable is the same as that of the widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8): "to show the force of importunity," that is, of persistent asking.

Jesus finished the story Himself. The friend inside answers, "Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee" (Luke 11:7). Yet "because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth" (Luke 11:8). Then Jesus applied it: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Luke 11:9).

Asking a neighbor for bread was not strange. Gill writes that "it was usual of the Jews to borrow bread of one another," and that there were rules for when and how it was done. Gill takes "in his journey" possibly to mean "out of the way," a traveler who had lost his way and arrived late. Barnes says nothing special is meant by the number three; it simply fills out the story.

The word translated "importunity" in Luke 11:8 is anaideia. Thayer defines it as "shamelessness, impudence," and it appears only in this passage in the New Testament. The ESV renders it "impudence."

The story does not picture God as a sleepy, unwilling neighbor. It argues from the lesser to the greater: if even a reluctant friend will get up for a persistent knock, how much more will the Father respond (Luke 11:13). Matthew Henry is careful here: "Not that God can be wrought upon by importunity." He explains, "We prevail with men by importunity because they are displeased with it, but with God because he is pleased with it."

Notice too that the man was asking for someone else. His guest was hungry, and he had "nothing to set before him." This parable comes right after the disciples' request, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). Part of Jesus' answer is that prayer can be honest about empty hands and bold enough to keep asking.