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

vinedresser is not convinced whether or not the tree will bear fruit by his special tending, he
at least has good expectations of it bearing fruit. The ellipsis of the apodosis not only creates
an aposiopesis which allows the reader to ponder whether the tree could survive another year,
but is made clear by the vinedresser’s second statement to the owner (v. 9b). 21 Instead of
saying “if not, I will cut it down, as you have directed me to do,” the vinedresser says that
“you, the owner, will cut it down.” It is a polite imperative or an expression of approval
rather than sarcasm or insubordination. 22
The emphasis of this verse (v. 9) is put on the
possibility that the owner grants a period of grace to the tree, but that period is limited as one
year, if the owner approves the vinedresser’s suggestion. In the parable, the judgment is not
cancelled, but merely postponed. The delay here becomes a call for repentance like Rom 2:4
where the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience lead to repentance.
4-3. The Interpretation of the Parable
The church fathers had easily allegorized the parable as description of the Jews, human
morality or the church. While Ambrose sees the vineyard as the Jewish people, the fig tree as
the synagogue with the Lord coming three times seeking fruit, and the vinedresser as Peter.
Augustine views the vineyard as the world, the fig tree as the human race, the three times
coming as God’s relation with humanity before the Law, under the Law and under grace, the
gardener as saints in the church, and the cultivation and fertilization as teaching on humility
23
and sorrow for sin. Such an allegorizing of the parable still appears inevitably in the
commentaries and interpretations of recent exegetes. 24
Blomberg deals with the parable as a
simple allegory with three specific points of comparison in which he sees the vineyard as
Israel, the owner as God and the tree as Israel’s leaders, neglecting other elements in the
21. The usage of an aposiopesis is attested well in both Semitic and Classical Greek sources. Marshall, Luke,
556; Forbes, The God of Old: The Role of the Lukan Parables in the Purpose of Luke’s Gospel, 91.
22. Marshall, Luke, 556.
23. Ambrose, Traité sur ι’Evangile de S. Luc, ed. Gabriel Tissot (2 vols.; Sources Chrétiennes 45, 52; Paris:
Cerf, 1956-58), 2:67-72; Augustine, Sermon 110 (PL 38, cols. 638-39); S.L. Wailes, Medieval Allegories of
Jesus’ Parables (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 220-25.
24. A.B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ: A Systematic and Critical Study of the Parables of Our Lord
(New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1886), 432; B.T.D. Smith, The Parables of the Synoptic Gospels: A Critical
Study (Cambridge: University Press, 1937), 115-16; Derrett, “Fig Trees in the New Testament,” in Midrash in
Action and As A Literary Device Vol. 2 of Studies in the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 249-65; Madeleine
Boucher, The Mysterious Parable: A Literary Study (CBQMS 6; Washington: CBA, 1977), 34-35, The Parables
(Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1983), 138-40.; K.E. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes: More Lucan Parables,
Their Culture and Style, 81; Jones, The Teaching of the Parables, 121-24; Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables,
268.
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