Sinclair B. Ferguson

I want to think with you this week on the podcast about what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, 22 to 23.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

I think we'd agree that these words are worth memorizing, and I'm going to repeat them every day this week.

But I think it's also interesting that for some people, these are favorite verses.

I'm not sure that's always been true of me, and so it's a good thing for me, and I hope it's an encouragement to you that we spend some time thinking about them.

It's interesting, isn't it, that Paul calls these different qualities, there are nine of them, he calls them fruit.

Fruit in the singular, not fruits in the plural.

Although earlier on in this chapter, he'd spoken about the works, plural, of the flesh, not just the work of the flesh.

And I rather think that he's suggesting that all of these qualities belong together.

They're meant to grow on the same tree, as it were.

You can't really develop one of them fully without having all of them.

At the same time, I wonder if the reason he calls them fruit is because they take time to grow and they need to be nourished.

It's interesting, I think, isn't it, that he uses a horticultural metaphor here, not a mechanical one.

These qualities can't be artificially produced.

They need to be developed in us by God's grace.

When I think of these words in Galatians chapter 5, I often am reminded of two comments made by two rather remarkable Christian ministers.

The first is a comment made by the great 18th century Anglican minister Charo Simeon of Cambridge.

And he made it about a young man whose name was Henry Martin, who became a very great missionary and translator of the Scriptures.

He was a brilliant young man.