The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is a biblical term that sums up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life, according to Paul's Letter to the Galatians chapter:5. Though there are nine attributes to the Fruit of the Spirit, the original Greek term translated as "Fruit" is singular, signifying that there is one Fruit, with nine parts. Throughout the Bible, righteous men are likened to trees, and Paul in Galatians 5 explains what fruit a righteous tree bears. Accordingly, this fruit is grown by those who have truly repented, or are truly followers of Jesus. It is arguable that if one does not bear this fruit, one is not truly a Christian. In John's account of the Gospel Jesus said, "These things I command you, that you love one another" referred to as the New Commandment or the second greatest commandment. Paul illustrates with these attributes the kind of love that marks a true Christian life:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
— Galatians 5:22-23
The Douay-Rheims translation lists these as follows:
But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, Mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such things there is no law.
— Galatians 5:22-23
Immediately before he illustrates Christ-like "love-one-another" love, author Paul issues a stern warning in presenting partial list of what he termed "acts of the flesh" which he labels as "obvious":
sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
— Galatians 5:19-21
In one of the most austere statements attributed to Paul in the New Testament, he concludes the negative list with these unequivocal words: "I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." There is no mention of these behaviors and attitudes being unpardonable sins. Perhaps the key words are "those who live like this" which imply a lifestyle.
The virtues are given in a pleonastic style which rhetorician George Kennedy describes as "The cumulation of a series of words which seem to come pouring out of his heart" (p. 90). This is a common stylistic feature of the Apostle Paul's writing. See Romans1:29-31; Romans 13:13; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 2 Corinthians 12:20; Galatians 5:19-23; Philippians 4:8.
Read more about Fruit Of The Holy Spirit: Love (Greek: agape, Latin: caritas), Joy (Greek: chara, Latin: gaudium), Peace (Greek: eirene, Latin: pax), Patience (Greek: makrothumia, Latin: longanimitas), Kindness (Greek: chrestotes, Latin: benignitas), Goodness (Greek: agathosune, Latin: bonitas), Faithfulness (Greek: pistis, Latin: fides), Gentleness (Greek: prautes, Latin: modestia), Self-control (Greek: egkrateia, Latin: continentia)
Famous quotes containing the words fruit of the, holy spirit, fruit of, fruit, holy and/or spirit:
“The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled “a contemplative man’s recreation,” introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist’s observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man’s recreation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 1:18,19.
“The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native ground, they consider me a work of primitive art, housed in a magical color; the incarnation of civilized, anti-heathenism, and the fruit of a triumphing idea.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)
“Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes!
the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to
solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“Each dull day and each despairing act
Builds up the crags from which the spirit leaps....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)