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

parable, namely the three years and the vinedresser. For Blomberg the allegory in the parable
presents imminent judgment over Israel’s religious leaders and God’s mercy offered for a
short while. 25
On the contrary, Scott strives neither to allegorize, nor to moralize the parable. He
assumes that the parable also has strong metaphorical and symbolic possibilities from his
basic stance that all parables indicate the kingdom. For Scott the ellipsis of the first apodosis
in v. 9 like the kingdom creates hope for the tree on the reader’s part, that is, “the ellipsis
creates a tension for a hearer. Is there hope possible, or is this tree barren? Can the miracle of
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birth come from a barren fig tree?” The only hope in this situation keeps on manuring,
“What else is there to do?” 27
But I cannot see any suggestion of the kingdom in the parable.
He elicits the kingdom from what the parable does not say. His discovery that the ellipsis is
the kingdom is not only a hermeneutical leap from the parable to kingdom, but his own
personal response to the parable on basis of his general assumption that all parables point to
the kingdom.
On the other hand, in another reading of the parable, Hedrick assumes that if the owner
decides to cut the tree down, it becomes a story about the faulty judgment of a vineyard
owner or a judgment about incompetence and irresponsibility of the owner and the
vinedresser who have never taken any measures for three years in order to bear fruit. He
claims, therefore, that in this sense, the cutting down of the tree is unjustified. He concludes
that the parable is a story about hope that the tree may be improved, taking some examples
not only in the following story that the most hopeless situation concludes with positive results
such as 13:10-13, 13:18-19 and 13:20-21, but in the Old Testament holding out hope in a
situation. For Hedrick hope operates as an open system on all those who are evil and the good,
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the pious and impious without discrimination, like the word of Jesus in Matt 5:45. It is
quite right for him to put the main emphasis of the parable on hope. But he not only fails to
consider the allegory, moral lesson and metaphor in the parable, but also makes the parable
tenuous because of his insistence on a realistic narrative about a problem in farm
management.
In the parable there are three main points: the figs that the farmer expects, cutting the tree
without fruit down according to the commandment of the farmer and a potential additional
25. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 269.
26. Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 338.
27. Ibid., 338.
28. Hedrick, “An Unfinished Story about a Fig Tree in a Vineyard (Luke13:6-9),” 188, 190-192.
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