I think what you wrote makes absolute sense!

no fruit would be the priest, etc., who passed by the hurt man on the road. we can make our own present day pictures of what illustrations Jesus could use today.

so no fruit, to me, would be all the opportunities we have to do good and instead do nothing.

bad fruit would be all the times we have opportunities to do good and instead do bad.

thats how i see it.

I like this conversation because I think it gets at the heart of the lesson. The question, I think we are dancing around at this point is "what is the fruit of the Spirit?" It seems that you are calling no-fruit not doing what is right and bad-fruit doing what is wrong. It would appear therefore that good-fruit is doing what is right.

However, according to my understanding of the fruit, it is not any actions at all, instead it is the characteristic of a Spirit-Led life. Certainly these are manifested in actions like picking up the man on the side of the road, but they are "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance" not actions.

It seems as though the fruit is about who you are. This really places the emphasis on God's need to change us to have this fruit. It is not natural to "be" like this.

I think this is a key component in this lesson and all quarter long, what is the nature of the fruit of the spirit? Is it primarily actions?

Forgive my clumsy use of plural versus singular tense...I am trying to maintain the fruit as singular meaning that this is a package deal, but failing.

Interesting thought shermancox, never thought of it that way!

pk

I have been trying to imagine no fruit. I can't. But can't we love and hate? Can't we have joy and sorrow? Can't we have peace and war? Can't we have light and darkness? Can't we have good and evil? That is what the war in heaven and the great controversy are all about. And without the Holy Spirit, we only have that hated cause of sorrow, evil. So I guess the question is when will we have love without hate, joy without sorrow, and peace without war, and so forth.

In the sweet by and by

would we even know what love is without hate, what joy is without sorrow, what peace is without war?

Now you're just waxing philosophic.

I am not certain how you regard Ellen White's work, Sherman, but the view she presents is generally that

"our words and actions constitute the fruit we bear" (4T 609).


________
Regards,
Stewart

Hello,

I am just about down with the lesson for this week. I have thought on this subject of bad fruit or no fruit and I read all of your comments. I think if we had bad fruit we would be in a literal "hell" if there was no fruit that would the same. I agree that they are kind of one in the same. Like a lot of good fruit. I was really kind of trying to come to terms with people who are religious but do not claim the power of that religion.

I appreciated John 15 1-10 and reading it more and more. Christ being the vine and God the gardener. EGW explained though pruning can be painful, God has the knife and we become that good fruit and only Christ is in us and we are in Christ. I understood more and more why the bible says to stay away from those who do not claim Christ. It has been a very eye opening week. I love how Christ is the vine and how that works and that we can't do anything with out HIM. Which means, we can't produce bad fruit. The relationship with Christ is so pure and no worries and we are in touch with God, our Heavenly Father. I appreciate the purity of the relationship and how we are taken care of by God with His pruning.

I appreciated the analogy of the beautiful ornamental tree and no fruit. I have experienced that. I have been in the philanthropic world and have attended functions with people who make huge monetary contributions to cancer and other things (which is wonderful) however, they can be like the Ornamental trees. I should probably be ashamed of myself but sometimes I have seen the giving for the wrong reasons. At least cancer research is benefiting. The money is getting there. Some people need other motivations. We should appreciate them.