One for all and all…

So, Jesus shares that the Father is interested in each of us bearing fruit. We can presume that to mean that the Father intends for each of us to rise above a mundane existence. We need here to compare Scripture with scripture to get a feel for what it is he is talking about. One of the “fruitiest” passages we can examine is found in the Book of Galatians where we’re given this: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ~Galatians 5:22,23

One slight bit of pedantry I must dispatch with at the outset is the fact that fruit is given as a singular, not a plural. That is important. The fruit expresses itself in a number of ways and with a number of qualities. For example, an apple can be described as large, red, crisp, sweet and tangy all with one delicious bite. The fruit that the Spirit bears into our life is likewise described, in this case, with several nouns. The reason that this is important is that all of these qualities are a part of the one fruit. We cannot take any of these away and still have the whole fruit. Thus, in the Christian faith, we cannot work on just one of these virtues without in some measure working on them all. Moreover, we cannot ignore one without in some way ignoring them all.

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Thus, the brilliance of placing all of these nouns under just one fruit becomes evident. It’s an all or nothing affair. One or more virtues may race ahead. Another one or two might lag behind. But in the end, they are all lashed together. If we look at love, we cannot help but think that all the rest should be manifestations of love. And it seems to work that way with each. We cannot imagine the one without the others. It’s an all for one and one for all sort of thing.

And so, Jesus tells his disciples that they are to be fruit-bearers. The basic Christian virtues listed in Galatians are an important feature of that fulfillment – but it is not quite the whole story. There’s more to see.