Love

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, 

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control [...]"

Galatians 5:22-23

The Fruit

For a while now, I've been wanting to shift my focus on re-exploring the meaning of the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul describes in his letter to the church in Galatia.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that I've had to postpone writing about this topic. After all, if everybody was really growing this fruit of the Spirit inside of them, then there wouldn't have been for my previous posts (Navigation | Narration | Normalisation). 

One of the many things I appreciate about the Bible is that every word was written with an intention behind it. Paul, I'm sure, deliberately chose his specific order of words to delineate what the fruit looked like. Therefore, I'm staying true to that and will start off with the first one: LOVE.

Before that, I wanted to dwell a bit on the symbolism of the fruit...

Why fruit? 

Our 21st century minds often tend to forget the background in which the Biblical narrative took place. People back then didn't walk into a supermarket and found several aisles with fruits and vegetables from around the world. Fresh produce, generally speaking, was for the privileged!

The fruits most often associated with the Biblical diet are figs, grapes, dates and olives. People's main source of sustenance, however, were "primarily wheat and barley grains." The people of Hellenistic Anatolia, to which Paul was writing, would have also had a similar diet. ('A Companion to Food in the Ancient World')

Fruit is something special. Growing fruit or vegetables from scratch is hard work!

My wife has been growing all kinds of produce on our little balcony. The other day I freaked out, because I found a bunch of aphids on pretty much every single plant. They were all over our mint, lettuce, chili, tomatoes and I went into panic mode. There's a lot that can go wrong in the process of growing produce like that. In gardens, there are many more pests and weeds that will endanger your crops.

Yesterday, I found a ladybird in our apartment and decided to give it a new home amidst the aphid infestation - a feast for this hungry bug. So far so good...

All this is symbolic for the challenges of growing the fruit of the Spirit. As Christians, we face daily challenges that the enemy throws at us. Ironically, this is due to the first sin of us eating the fruit we weren't supposed to eat.

But the fruit of the tree upon which Jesus was crucified, brought us new life. It is symbolised by a new approach to life with 9 distinct qualities: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Love is the quality that stands on the frontline in our war with Satan. If God is love, then Satan is the opposite and will continually attack that which is of God.

It was Christ's love for us that has restored us to the pre-Fall status with God. The blood of Jesus bought us out of slavery into a new freedom as sons and daughters of the living God.

Love - Always

Some of the most famous passages on love were written by Paul. At most weddings you will hear 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love, it would seem, is the seed of the fruit of the Spirit. The verses above are almost a demonstration to show that it all starts with love. Paul directly or indirectly mentions each of the 9 qualities in this passage. More importantly, he claims that love is on the side of truth. 

We are called to speak the truth to one another in love. This is not (only) a recipe for love in marriage, but love within the community of Christians. If we choose the type of love that Jesus showed for us, then you and I and this community will be healthy and fruitful.   

Paul's other famous verse also appears in 1 Corinthians. He proclaims:

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

In John 13:15, Jesus says: "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Love is the Number 1 indicator that we are disciples of Christ. It only makes sense that we experience hardship in that area, because if we don't love well, then we come across as poor ambassadors for the King we're supposed to represent. Yes, it's a cliché...but this is why love is a verb. Faith and hope can also have external expressions, but love is a powerful outworking of the heart God has given us for those around us.

Love as Sacrifice

One of the most important lessons to learn about love is that it can never be self-serving. That's not what love is. John made sure we understand love as a sacrificial act:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

I must admit, I often forget to move away from my self-centredness and view others the way God views them. I fail to "feel" love for others. But anybody who has been married for a while should know that the butterflies don't stay there forever. They fly away and are replaced by something more beautiful: fruit. 

The heart is like a garden. Some of us have allowed too many thorny plants to grow. (I'm not talking about roses!) Our heart is where the fruit of the Spirit resides. In turn, it feeds our soul.

What do give your soul to eat?

It's a beautiful picture that God would have allowed us to grow a tree in our heart-garden, bearing fruit that is a direct result from knowing Him and understanding good and evil. 

The cross where Jesus sacrificed His life is the newer version of the Tree of Life. At Calvary, Jesus' love brought us into eternal communion with Him. We are to model this courageous type of love.

Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). It is an antidote to our indulgence in evil practices. 

Love binds everything together in perfect harmony (Colossians 3:14). It is a symphony that God invites us to play every day. 

Love, in its purest form, cannot harm any person. "Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10) 

When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, He offered this answer: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37) I reckon all our problems would virtually be solved if we loved God and each other like that. 

This is my personal challenge - to care for that first blossom of the fruit of the Spirit - to let the beauty of God's love for us shine through in everything I say and do. 

I hope you will join me and watch how more fruit will grow out of that.