The Fruit of the Spirit

Nobody shouts at an apple tree to make apples. You don't glue oranges onto branches. Fruit grows, slowly and quietly, when a tree is healthy and well rooted. Paul says the best things in a person's life grow like that too.

Paul had started churches in Galatia, a region in the highlands of what is now Turkey. Since he left, some teachers had arrived telling the Gentile believers they must keep the law of Moses to really belong to God. The churches were split and arguing. Paul has spent most of his letter telling them that they are free: made right with God by faith in Christ, not by rule-keeping. But freedom can be misused. So now he explains what Christian freedom is for.

You were called to be free, brothers and sisters, Paul writes. But don't use your freedom as an excuse to do whatever your selfish side wants. “By love serve one another.” Because the whole law is summed up in one command: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Then Paul gives a warning that sounds almost like an animal documentary. “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” If you keep snapping and tearing at each other like wild animals, you will end up destroying each other. So, Paul says, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Let God's Spirit lead you, step by step.

Inside us, Paul says, there is a tug of war. Our selfish nature wants one thing, and the Spirit wants another. And Paul describes what grows when the selfish side is in charge. It's not a pretty list. Worshipping idols. Hatred. Fighting. Jealousy. Fits of rage. Selfish ambition. Splitting into rival groups. Envy. Getting drunk and wild partying. And things like these. Paul warns that people who keep living that way will not inherit God's kingdom. Notice how many of those things are about how we treat each other. Paul knew exactly what was happening in Galatia.

And then he describes the other harvest. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Love. Joy. Peace. Patience that lasts a long time. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. Notice Paul says fruit, not fruits. One fruit, with many flavours, all growing together. No rule book could ever forbid these things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus, Paul says, have nailed their selfish nature to the cross. “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Keep in step with him. And one last word for the arguing churches: let's not become proud, or provoke one another, or envy one another.

Galatia got its name from the Galatians, Celtic people from Europe, related to the Gauls, who had migrated into central Asia Minor about three centuries before Paul. Later, Rome turned the region into a province, in the year twenty-five BC, and extended it south to include cities like Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, where Paul had preached. So the people Paul wrote to may have been Celtic, Greek, Jewish or Phrygian: a real mix, needing to learn to love one another.

The fruit of the Spirit. You'll find it in Galatians chapter five, verses thirteen to twenty-six. Churches that were biting and snapping at each other, and a picture of what grows instead when God's Spirit leads. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. So here is a question to carry with you. Which part of the fruit of the Spirit would you most like to see growing in your life right now?