An Anglicostal Connecting to a Real World
I have some luxury of time in preparing for my next message, so I am meditating on John 15. The question for me is this: “What is fruit?”
In our pragmatic evangelical world, it often means “souls.” Numbers.
But, honestly… what is the FRUIT Jesus refers to here?
I would love your thoughts. 
From my Spirit Filled Life Bible, it says:
“The fruit that the heavenly vinedresser looks for in His people is Christlikeness.” It then refers to Galatians 5: 22,23, which lists “the fruit of the Spirit (as) love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” It was never easy to be a Christian!
The same bible notes say of John 5: 18-25: “Godless secular society is hostile towards Christ and His followers, simply because Christian standards are in opposition to the world’s systems.” So things really don’t change through the centuries.
Thank you for drawing me to look closer at John 5.
Eleanor
Great thoughts! Thanks, Eleanor!
I mean of course John 15, not John 5!
I would still hold that it could possibly refer to souls – if so, it makes it a challenging passage? What else would be evidential to one’s spiritual growth than leading others to the Lord? How many of us in every sincere way has led others to the Lord? That and also the things previously noted about the Galatians 5 passage. And I say this know that I think you know I am not one to be big on pragmatics.
“Winning souls” is still something I struggle with as “fruit.” It’s easy for us to measure, that’s for sure. But is that what Jesus refers to here?
I know Dan, I guess that is the question isn’t it? Sadly I am not at home where I can check and see what Keener has to say and still don’t have the new Michaels commentary on John.
“Leading others to the Lord.” I like that – our priest preached just that, and how important it is for all of us to reach out to our wider community in that way – as part of our Bible sunday service yesterday.
Leon Morris’ classic work equates “fruit” with the fruit of character and fruit of the Spirit.
Dan… one thing that I think a lot of people miss out when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit such as Eleanor mentioned is that the Fruit of the Spirit is God’s character and nature.
God’s character and nature is…love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control….as God works through us, he changes us into his image… one question I like to ask people within a pastoral setting is how much they recognise these are God’s traits towards us?
Then the question is… if God treats us like this… do we really treat our selves like this? If we don’t treat our self with these traits… how can we treat others this way?
I believe there needs a shift in Christian thinking where we stop trying to manifest the fruit towards others without a true inner heart change, instead crying out to God for us to be changed and to recognise this change within our selves… if I”m not merciful to myself… how can I truly be merciful to others?
If these character traits aren’t flowing out of us, does it mean we’re still attached to the Vine?
As to “winning souls,” and “fruit,” I have to admit I see plenty of evidence of people who really don’t demonstrate much of Gal. 5 fruit, yet “win souls” so people tend to say, “Look at the fruit of their ministry!” I have to admit I’m bothered by that.
I think there is a process of growth that happens.
There are two issues I see that often happens
God knows our heart, the circumstances of our situation and the why we do what we do. Traditionally I believe the church has preached the fruit of the Spirit in a legalistic sense, moralising in a condemnatory way.
This brings about a sense of imperfection within our hearts of constantly failing God and so a striving happens where we try strive to externally please God whilst not living a life of internal peace, mercy etc.
The second area is of licentious behaviour as you mentioned… there is a difference between reflecting God’s nature (fruit of the spirit) and operating out of Gift. We are warned against this where Jesus said… you will say you did this and that and cast out this demon, healed this person….but I say I didn’t know you… bye bye!
Therefore real fruit will come out of a real relationship where we will receive God’s love so that we can be loved, love ourselves and love others.
We will receive God’s mercy, so we can be forgiven, forgive ourselves and forgive others.
We will receive God’s joy, knowing He is joyful over us, so we can be joyful within and be joyful with others.
I think fruit has to be our Christlike behavior. Years ago, you gave a sermon on how Christians don’t have to just have a higher standard but an excellent standard of behavior and that is a fruit we all fail to exhibit from time to time. Forgive me for my cynicism but I have a hard time with the concept of God keeping tabs on how many “souls” we win for His kingdom. We all have different gifts of the Spirit . Fruit is the result of how you impact the world around you. Not just salvation tallies but how much better life is around you.
Hope I made sense.
I think that the way we improve the world around us – spread our Christian gifts around us – is more important than “salvation tallies.” The new souls “notched” up as a result of our behaviour are of course a bonus. I personally believe that many Christians for too long have concentrated on the latter at the expense of the former. And this spreading of our fruits is really pretty much what James Davison Hunter refers to as “faithful presence” in his inspiring book “To Change the World.” But he does make it very clear that this “faithful presence” that we practice should reach out to everyone, of any faith or none, with no discrimination, for a flourishing of the entire world.
Sidetracking a little, I also like reference by Jesus in John 15 v. 2 – “…and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” To be productive, any branch has to submit to pruning – in this metaphor it means submitting to the beneficent discipline of the Father (God). See also Hebrews 12: 10….”He (chastened) us for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.”
What great thoughts from everyone. This is incredibly helpful to me!
this is a good post. all of it. i would say the character of God as the fruit. He is all that is mentioned in Galatians, therefore we should put on christ, like the verse mentions, all those attributes. With these attributes and this character of God working in us and working through us can lead people to the saving knowledge of the LORD.
i don’t believe the fruit is about souls, numbers, statistics, ministries in the church, etc at all.
Debbie I entirely agree!
Apprentice 2 Jesus 
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