The fruit of the Spirit is...

Galatians. 5:22-23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

But the fruit, singular of the Spirit, singular, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Even back to the Greek the fruit is singular. Spirit is singular too as is God. What an interesting use of words. How interesting too when we contemplate how so many can be abused by so called church folk doling out their brand of judgment. The use of the word dole is deliberate too, from the old English dolor, to cause pain or more modern to apportion small amounts.

There is nothing in this verse from Galatians that has anything to do with pain, causing pain, judgment or hurt. In fact the entire passage speaks to the joys of belief in one God, his son, the savior, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. In fact one might arguably refer to the verse for a road map of day to day life. In one mind, one though, one spirit through one God treat all with one love, one joy, one peace, one patience, one kindness, one goodness, one faithfulness, one gentleness and one self-control. Master all of those and you’ve won the day.

Break it down further and look at the singularity of the fruit and spirit. You see the fruit of the Spirit is all encompassing. The singular fruit encompasses the entirety of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control all rolled into one. What God expects from us is not one of these fine attributes but all of them at all times. A very, very tall order and one very difficult challenge. God knows that if it is easy then maybe it isn't worth doing. Many of God's challenges to humanity are difficult including this one from Galatians which expects so much from the one of us.

To embrace humanity and love humanity all of these fruit and Spirit attributes are required simultaneously. We can approach a dirty, drunken homeless person with kindness, but if we don't have patience to help them deal with their addiction, we are of little use to them. We can attend church with faithfulness but if we act daily without love of others then the time in church is wasted. We can pray our hearts out for desired outcomes but if those outcomes lack peace and the self-control of balanced thought then we've failed in our prayers.

So, hard as it might be, when meditating on Galatians 5:22-23 we have to bear in mind that it is the singular fruit of the Spirit that is the singular God which we aspire to. God, embodied as Jesus the Christ on Earth two thousand years ago and the Spirit today; which is and always will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.