Thursday, June 26, 2025  

Today's Scripture
Galatians 5:1, 13–25

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (NRSV)

Reflection

“The fruit of the Spirit’s not a coconut. No, the fruit of the Spirit’s not a coconut. If you want to be a coconut you may as well hear it: you can’t be a fruit of the Spirit.”

Something much like these words to the beloved children’s song must have been in the Apostle Paul’s mind when he scratched the words of Galatians 5:22–23 onto parchment. That, centuries on, young people would sing the praises of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control with tongue-in-cheek verses comparing them to literal fruit — that’s what he intended, right?

He may not have minded, I suspect, given his assertion elsewhere that motives are less important than that the good news of Jesus is shared. And this is undoubtedly good news that the virtues in this list are available to us as gifts from God’s Spirit. Because no program of self-improvement will make us loving or patient or self-controlled enough, not as kind and gentle and faithful as Jesus anyway. But the Spirit guides us to impart to us these fruits to nurture our life together as Christ’s body and the lives of our neighbors, to whom to love is the greatest commandment (v. 14).

And what of these virtues’ counterparts, that vice list in verses 19–21? What of the warning that those who engage in such things as enmity, jealousy, strife, and sexual immorality “will not inherit the kingdom of God?” I believe this warning is true, and I believe it is true now. I don’t take these verses to be a warning about being denied entry at the pearly gates.

The kingdom of heaven that Jesus taught and preached was drawing near is a new experience of life in God founded on self-giving love for our neighbor as much as on forgiveness and prayer for our enemies and persecutors. The life Jesus shared and invited us to follow is the kingdom of heaven; it is its own reward. And a life of enmity and bitterness and recrimination and self-indulgence — that kind of life blocks our way to the life Jesus desires for us and holds out for us, through the power of the Spirit.

Prayer

Make us fruitful today, O God, with the fruits of your Spirit, so that we and everyone we know, from our friends to our enemies and from our families to strangers we meet, would be nurtured and enriched for life in community. Through Christ our Savior. Amen.  

Written by Rocky Supinger, Senior Associate Pastor

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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