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The Fruit of the Spirit
A biblical study of genuine character growth in the life of the Christian, as set forth in Galatians 5.
- GenresChristian
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 7, 2020
A very helpful resource that I used while teaching through the Fruit of the Spirit. Recommended.
June 6, 2024
A spiritually profitable study of the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Gal 5:22-23. Each chapter about a fruit describes the opposite work of the flesh (sin) to avoid, the counterfeit "fruit" (work of the law) to avoid, the true fruit of the Spirit, and how to cultivate it. Each chapter ends with questions for reflection and discussion. The book is replete with Bible verses and examples.
Notes
Introduction
We all have carnal moments, but unless we have meaningful character growth in exhibiting fruit of Spirit, we're not Christian.
The Fruit and the Epistle
Faith leads to love which leads to good works (fruit of Spirit) (Gal 5:6, 14, 22-23).
Works lead to curse which leads to bondage which lead to works of flesh (Gal 4:24; 5:19-21).
The Fruit and the Weeds
Fruit of Spirit don't initially take form in actions or habits, but in abilities and mindsets.
There's no single, comprehensive list of fruit of Spirit. Lists include Gal 5:22-23; Rom 5:3-5; 1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 3:10; 2 Pet 1:5-7.
Work of flesh (sin) | artificial fruit (work of law) | fruit of Spirit
• Hatred | limited love | love
• Sorrow | temporary joy | joy
• Anxiety, strife | numbness, carelessness | peace
• Impatience | laziness, insensitivity | patience
• Pride | manipulation by kindness | kindness
• Evil | hypocrisy | goodness
• Infidelity | half-heartedness | faithfulness
• Self-seeking | false modesty | meekness
• Lack of control | choosing lesser goods | self-control
Love
To cultivate love, think of all the ways you've experienced God's love.
Joy
Ungodly sorrow
• Hopelessness facing death (1 Thess 4:13)
• Sorrow of world (2 Cor 7:10)
• Unrepentant sorrow over just punishment of sin (Heb 12:16)
Self-pity grows out of desire to find happiness in success or in God's means rather than in God.
Legitimate criticism is based on faith and God's promises; it has a positive attitude and wholesome effects. Complaining is rebellious ignoring of God's prerogatives; it has a negative attitude and destructive effects.
Don't see blessings as more significant than Giver of blessings.
We have sorrow over sin and its effects, but must also have permanent joy regardless of circumstances (Jas 1:2; Phil 1:5, 18; 2:2; 4:4, 10; 2 Jn 4; 1 Thess 5:16).
Joy doesn't depend on circumstances, but is based on God's existence and immutable promises. It's the positive feeling that God's will is being done. it's deeper than godly sorrow, so can be present even when we're righteously sorrowful.
The more seriously you take sin, the more joyful you'll be about forgiveness.
To be joyful, contemplate God's wisdom (He uses circumstances to benefit you), love (He only allows what will work to your good), power (He's in complete control).
Peace
If you have peace with God, you can rejoice in good that comes to others, which nullifies envy, strife, contention.
Consciously trust God (Isa 26:3).
Have assurance of salvation (1 Jn 3:19ff) by seeing that you have love for fellow Christians.
In prayer, approach God humbly, thank Him for blessings, and make specific requests, and you'll experience peace of God (Phil 4:65ff).
Patience
Lack of love, joy, peace leads to impatience.
Impatience with circumstances is resenting what God has assigned to us, and ignores God's purposes, so it's practical atheism.
God may put His people in difficult circumstances for sake of saving others, so we must handle these situations well to give a good testimony.
Impatience with others may be objecting to the way God made them.
Patience isn't inactivity, but refusing to act a certain way for a certain period of time.
Knowing others have faced your trials can give patience (1 Cor 10:13).
Knowing God will never forsake you can give patience.
Kindness
Our interactions and relationships with other indicate our relationship with God (e.g., pride, selfishness, unkindness).
Refusing to help others out of false modesty, thinking you're no good, harms the Church and world.
Christians can't be loners. The greater your love for God, the greater your kindness toward, and involvement with, others.
Goodness
Accept criticism from fellow Christians and use it to replace evil with goodness in your life.
Faithfulness
Half-heartedness and outward conformity are unfaithfulness.
To cultivate faithfulness
• Fear God (adore with awe and dread)
• Recognize importance of Gospel
• Take stewardship seriously
Meekness and Gentleness
Meekness and gentleness aren't false modesty, self-deprecation, spineless refusal to stand for anything. False modesty refuses to recognize that God has given us abilities and successes in using them.
To cultivate meekness and gentleness
• Acknowledge you're a creature with obligations to Creator
• Acknowledge you're a sinner who's lost your rights
• Acknowledge you're incapable of good apart from God
• Acknowledge you're saved for purpose of glorifying God, which you do by exhibiting virtues, including meekness and gentleness
• Acknowledge God brings experiences into your life to help you grow in meekness and gentleness
• Acknowledge God gives you power to be meek and gentle
Self-control
Self-control must not only reject particular sins, it must replace them with affection for Christ.
The Fruit and God
Love
• Loving God leads to joy, peace, patience.
• Loving others leads to kindness, goodness, faithfulness.
• Loving self leads to meekness, self-control.
Reflecting on God's sovereignty, you can say, "God could've prevented this. Because He didn't, He must've willed it, and so it's all right."
The Fruit and Ourselves
When Bible says to hate ourselves (Lk 14:26), deny ourselves (Mt 16:24), crucify ourselves (Gal 6:14), it means we have nothing to offer God to merit justification, and must deny any desire that's against God's law.
There's a proper form of self-love (balanced concern for what's best for us); we're to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Accepting God's providence doesn't mean being indolent, fatalist, apathetic; being what God has called us to be requires activity.
Notes
Introduction
We all have carnal moments, but unless we have meaningful character growth in exhibiting fruit of Spirit, we're not Christian.
The Fruit and the Epistle
Faith leads to love which leads to good works (fruit of Spirit) (Gal 5:6, 14, 22-23).
Works lead to curse which leads to bondage which lead to works of flesh (Gal 4:24; 5:19-21).
The Fruit and the Weeds
Fruit of Spirit don't initially take form in actions or habits, but in abilities and mindsets.
There's no single, comprehensive list of fruit of Spirit. Lists include Gal 5:22-23; Rom 5:3-5; 1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 3:10; 2 Pet 1:5-7.
Work of flesh (sin) | artificial fruit (work of law) | fruit of Spirit
• Hatred | limited love | love
• Sorrow | temporary joy | joy
• Anxiety, strife | numbness, carelessness | peace
• Impatience | laziness, insensitivity | patience
• Pride | manipulation by kindness | kindness
• Evil | hypocrisy | goodness
• Infidelity | half-heartedness | faithfulness
• Self-seeking | false modesty | meekness
• Lack of control | choosing lesser goods | self-control
Love
To cultivate love, think of all the ways you've experienced God's love.
Joy
Ungodly sorrow
• Hopelessness facing death (1 Thess 4:13)
• Sorrow of world (2 Cor 7:10)
• Unrepentant sorrow over just punishment of sin (Heb 12:16)
Self-pity grows out of desire to find happiness in success or in God's means rather than in God.
Legitimate criticism is based on faith and God's promises; it has a positive attitude and wholesome effects. Complaining is rebellious ignoring of God's prerogatives; it has a negative attitude and destructive effects.
Don't see blessings as more significant than Giver of blessings.
We have sorrow over sin and its effects, but must also have permanent joy regardless of circumstances (Jas 1:2; Phil 1:5, 18; 2:2; 4:4, 10; 2 Jn 4; 1 Thess 5:16).
Joy doesn't depend on circumstances, but is based on God's existence and immutable promises. It's the positive feeling that God's will is being done. it's deeper than godly sorrow, so can be present even when we're righteously sorrowful.
The more seriously you take sin, the more joyful you'll be about forgiveness.
To be joyful, contemplate God's wisdom (He uses circumstances to benefit you), love (He only allows what will work to your good), power (He's in complete control).
Peace
If you have peace with God, you can rejoice in good that comes to others, which nullifies envy, strife, contention.
Consciously trust God (Isa 26:3).
Have assurance of salvation (1 Jn 3:19ff) by seeing that you have love for fellow Christians.
In prayer, approach God humbly, thank Him for blessings, and make specific requests, and you'll experience peace of God (Phil 4:65ff).
Patience
Lack of love, joy, peace leads to impatience.
Impatience with circumstances is resenting what God has assigned to us, and ignores God's purposes, so it's practical atheism.
God may put His people in difficult circumstances for sake of saving others, so we must handle these situations well to give a good testimony.
Impatience with others may be objecting to the way God made them.
Patience isn't inactivity, but refusing to act a certain way for a certain period of time.
Knowing others have faced your trials can give patience (1 Cor 10:13).
Knowing God will never forsake you can give patience.
Kindness
Our interactions and relationships with other indicate our relationship with God (e.g., pride, selfishness, unkindness).
Refusing to help others out of false modesty, thinking you're no good, harms the Church and world.
Christians can't be loners. The greater your love for God, the greater your kindness toward, and involvement with, others.
Goodness
Accept criticism from fellow Christians and use it to replace evil with goodness in your life.
Faithfulness
Half-heartedness and outward conformity are unfaithfulness.
To cultivate faithfulness
• Fear God (adore with awe and dread)
• Recognize importance of Gospel
• Take stewardship seriously
Meekness and Gentleness
Meekness and gentleness aren't false modesty, self-deprecation, spineless refusal to stand for anything. False modesty refuses to recognize that God has given us abilities and successes in using them.
To cultivate meekness and gentleness
• Acknowledge you're a creature with obligations to Creator
• Acknowledge you're a sinner who's lost your rights
• Acknowledge you're incapable of good apart from God
• Acknowledge you're saved for purpose of glorifying God, which you do by exhibiting virtues, including meekness and gentleness
• Acknowledge God brings experiences into your life to help you grow in meekness and gentleness
• Acknowledge God gives you power to be meek and gentle
Self-control
Self-control must not only reject particular sins, it must replace them with affection for Christ.
The Fruit and God
Love
• Loving God leads to joy, peace, patience.
• Loving others leads to kindness, goodness, faithfulness.
• Loving self leads to meekness, self-control.
Reflecting on God's sovereignty, you can say, "God could've prevented this. Because He didn't, He must've willed it, and so it's all right."
The Fruit and Ourselves
When Bible says to hate ourselves (Lk 14:26), deny ourselves (Mt 16:24), crucify ourselves (Gal 6:14), it means we have nothing to offer God to merit justification, and must deny any desire that's against God's law.
There's a proper form of self-love (balanced concern for what's best for us); we're to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Accepting God's providence doesn't mean being indolent, fatalist, apathetic; being what God has called us to be requires activity.
September 26, 2023
What I loved about this book was its study on the fruit (note: not "fruits") of the spirit in a more in-depth, practical way. The first few chapters with the Galatians illustration were a little muddy, but when he got into a whole chapter studying joy and another on patience, etc., there was some real gold. Glad someone posted about this so I could spend some time meditating on what the spirit of Jesus is like. Need it.
April 20, 2013
I got about half way through this book and had to put it down. The content was decent, but the writing was drab. It was a struggle picking it up to read every time and in my opinion that just defeats the purpose. I would not recommend the book unless you happened to be looking for content for a report of some sort.
March 16, 2015
Solid exposition of the fruit of the Spirit, but dated and rather dull style of writing. Jerry Bridges' The Practice of Godliness (republished as The Fruitful Life) is better.
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