FRUIT


I have very little to say here about the word "fruit." You and everyone else on earth use the word, and so it hardly needs any added actual "definition" by me.

However, "fruit" and "fruits" are found in the Bible something like 240 times, and some very familiar Bible verses have the word "fruit" in them, and therefore this word will naturally pop up in ordinary chats and conversations between Christians.

That makes it potentially a part of our communications, and, as you know, I like my speech to be understood.

The "very little" that I would say about the word "fruit" is that it should inform us that there is a "source" prior to "fruit's" existence, from which it originated.

While at first that statement might strike you as an obvious fact, I would argue that, no, I do not think it is "obvious" to all people who use the word in their vocabularies. In example, a person can instruct someone who's going to the grocery store, to "get some fruit." And it is very easy to think of "fruit" as "objects," as though they were told, "get some paper plates." If all through a span of ten years a person buys their pears and apples from the grocery store, those "things" may come to be thought of merely as edible things just as "cupcakes" are, or as "donuts" are, without any mental imagery ever engaging to the effect that pears not only "originate" on trees, but, more importantly to me, trees "PRODUCE" them. I dare say that a child raised from birth in a bubble might be handed pears to eat, year after year, and never have the knowledge that a "tree" PUT FORTH or PRODUCED those "things." What I am saying is simply that people are QUITE able to "leave out" of their thinking towards "fruit" any notice, consideration, or care, that TREES are "where" it comes from. And of course there are types of fruit that also "come from" vines, such as grapes.

If that "incomplete" outlook on fruit and on the use of it as a word is brought over into a person's Christian life after they "get saved" and start reading and hearing the Bible, I tell you it will result in them "missing" things the Word of God is saying.

Here's the crux of what I want to communicate: FRUIT (as a word in the Bible) is rarely used as "stand alone" "edible stuff" like a cupcake on a table. The Bible only rarely speaks of fruit like, "There was some fruit on the table," or like someone offering, "Here, have some fruit" (such as Eve did on that fateful day long ago). USUALLY fruit in the Bible is DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED WITH "where it came from" or "what" (such as a tree or a vine) "PRODUCED" it.

Think of the word "RESULT": Often when the Bible says this or that is the "fruit OF" something it means the fruit is the RESULT of somethin. Think of the word "OUTCOME": Sometimes in the Bible when circumstances RESULT FROM something or are the OUTCOME of it, that outcome or resulting circumstance is called the FRUIT of the things done. To keep the "vegetation metaphor" here, the Bible is DIRECTLY IMPLICATING THE TREE OR VINE as what "produced" the "outcome" or the "result." The BIBLE wants you to consider the "TREE" or "VINE" responsible for this "fruit" coming to be. Do you see an "apple?" The BIBLE wants you to also notice the "TREE" it's on, or that it "came from."

Very often (like 85 times) in the Bible it (the Bible) seeks to accomplish that CONSCIOUSNESS in you of "WHERE" the fruit "COMES FROM" or what "CAUSES" or "PRODUCES" the fruit by use of the the word "OF" along with "fruit." The joined words "fruit OF" this or that occur about 85 times in the Bible, all so that YOUR MIND will take notice, NOT just of whatever fruit is under discussion, but "WHERE IT ORIGINATED." Like in Hosea there is "the fruit OF lies" or deception. The meaning is the "outcome or results" of lies or deception. In that, God doesn't want you just seeing apples existing on a table with no idea how they "came to be." He wants you understanding CLEARLY that the present "result" came "from" the lies or deception He's talking about. When you read "the fruit OF" something, God wants you noticing "what" it's the fruit "OF." "OF" in English indicates origin or derivation.

You may hear me thus "speak biblically" on occasion and use "fruit" in a sentence, like, "This (which we shall call 'B') is the FRUIT of that (which we shall call 'A')." "Such and such is the fruit OF such and such." "That" produced "this." You should understand that I am saying "A" produced "B." "That tree produced this pear."



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