How Does Your Garden Grow? - A Study of Fruit in the Bible

The Apartment Bible study group has completed its study on fruit.  Entitled "How Does Your Garden Grow?" the study enlightened participants on three primary kinds of fruit, Thinking Fruit, Action Fruit, and Spiritual Fruit, and examined the differences in these before and after the fall of man and between the Old Testament Covenants and the New Covenant.

Click on the following link to get a copy of the study outline: How Does Your Garden Grow? Bible Study-In The Bible Ministries.  Click the following link for a copy of the Bible study discussion notes: Fruit in the Bible Discussion Notes).  Here is a condensed summary of the study:

The study begins by asking what kind of fruit do you produce in your garden.  Three kinds of fruit are established by work of the mind, body, or soul.  Things that result from thoughts, actions, or through relationships with others are then thought of as either "good" or "bad" fruit.

Before the fall of Adam and his wife, named Eve after the fall, God maintained an eternal spiritual relationship with mankind.  Spiritual Fruit was understood as perpetual.  The names of the animals which God brought to Adam are examples of Thinking Fruit that results from Adam thinking of the animals' names.  Cultivating the fields and the food resulting from that was an example of Action Fruit.  Fruit mentioned in the Bible was generally fruit for sustenance (food or earnings from cultivating fruit for food).

After the fall, the spiritual relationship was severed, and mankind was cursed.  From that point on, God graciously entered into covenants with mankind that required intermediaries between man and God in the form of priests, as well as blood sacrifices as propitiation for sin in their lives.

While some of the covenants included fruit sacrifices from the ground,  it had to be the best, first, fruits of the ground.  Blood sacrifices were required, as blood was the symbol of life.  The covenants that God made with men, Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, etc., were repeatedly broken. God's redeeming grace was provided only by fully obeying God's laws under the covenants.

 

Moses was not allowed to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land in spite of the initial covenant God made with him.  That he struck the rock in anger against the Israelites for their constant complaining, striking the rock twice and not once, and in anger, violated God's command. (Exodus 17:6, 20:10-13). Thus, Moses was among the generation of Israelites who died wandering in the desert and not entering the Promised Land.

God's grace was extended to several exceptions, namely Joshua and Caleb, and a number of Levite priests. Additional research was conduced to confirm that Joshua and Caleb were indeed members of the older generation who died for their repeated sins and grumbling along the way from Egypt to the Promised Land.  Both Joshua and Caleb were in heir early 20's before leaving Egypt, and at 60 years of age upon entering the Promised Land wold not have been allowed to enter had they not fully obeyed God's commands. (click on the following links to download Scripture references and back-up: Why Joshua & Caleb Were Allowed to Enter The Promised Land and Questions About Which Israelites Made It Into The Promised Land)

  God made a "New Covenant," which He put into the hearts of believers that finally led to restoration of the spiritual relationship between God and man.  While God's presence was separated from man by a curtain or "veil" in the Holy of Holies, Jesus Christ's blood sacrifice for all of mankind's sins which separated mankind from God was symbolized by a tearing of the veil in the temple from top to bottom. (Matthew 27:51).  Thus, no man can ever have a spiritual relationship with God except they believe in Christ and that He died for all the believers' sins.  This belief that restores a mankind's spiritual relationship with God is the Gospel.

Interestingly, only two basic types of fruit exist in the New Testament that had heretofore not been mentioned in the Bible, namely karpos, Greek for fruit suitable for eating and karpophoreo, Greek for fertile fruit (or perpetually producing fruit).  Its use describes a fruit that was is not food for the body , but food for the soul that will sustain man eternally.  That it is referenced elsewhere in the New Testament only seven times may indicate that it is the "perfect" fruit and "seven" is the number symbolizing general perfection.

Every use of this perpetually producing fruit in Scripture has one thing in common, the fact that it is generated with the Gospel.  The Gospel is what produces this Spiritual Fruit known as karpophoreo.  The implication reaffirms that man can only have an eternal spiritual relationship with God through Christ. (click the following link for a table of Scriptural references: Scriptural References to Fruit in the Old & New Testament)

Karpophoreo is not the "fruit" mentioned in the Fruit of the Spirit.  That reference of fruit is of karpos.  The actions and attitudes mentioned in Galatians 5:17-26 are manifested by The Holy Spirit through man.  In other words, man need the action, counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit in order for them to be possible.

  The study closes with the summary that fruit can be good or bad.  But the only kind of fruit that is always good and produces and reproduces itself is produced perpetually by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This begs the question for all of mankind, believers and non-believers, "How Does Your Garden Grow?"