22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
—The words of the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:22-23
Are you interested in knowing what qualities a Christian should exemplify? One of the early church fathers listed nine virtues that should characterize all the followers of Christ.
In alphabetical order, number one is faithfulness. It’s the idea of being trustworthy in your relationship with others and with God. “Fidelity” would be a synonym.
Number two is gentleness. Now that doesn’t refer to a tender, simpering, retreating young thing. The same word in Greek, the language in which this list was originally written long ago, is used for an animal that has been tamed. Gentleness in a person should be thought of as “strength that has been brought under proper control.”
The third quality is goodness. That means doing what is appropriate and right in God’s sight, even when it’s difficult to do so.
Very close to goodness, if I take one out of order, is number five, kindness, which is almost self-explanatory. Kindness is empathetic-sympathy which manifests itself in terms of specific actions.
We’ve jumped over a virtue in our alphabetical journey, so let’s go back and pick up number four, joy. Joy is deeper than happiness, which usually relates to one’s circumstances. Many years ago, Dr. Ronald K. Nasshan—now home with the Lord—told me that “Happiness is the quality of a child. But joy has a foundation of contentment reinforced by trust in the God who causes joy to spring forth from obedience.” Said another way, “When things are going well, I’m happy.” However, the joy of which the Apostle Paul writes is not dependent on surroundings. It’s very close to quality number 8—peace. Maybe I should differentiate between the two.
Peace has to do with an inner tranquility or calm. Joy is more a sense of deep contentedness or well-being, an inward singing which cannot be silenced by outward happenings. Model believers are to exemplify inner tranquility, or peace, and contentedness or joy.
That leaves only three more to define. Number six is love. We usually think of love in terms of feelings or emotions. But “agape” is primarily the idea of always seeking the best for another, or treating that other in a Christ-like fashion. Agape is an unconditional love.
It’s worth taking a moment here to explain that the New Testament Scriptures, largely written in the official language of learning at the time of the first century—that is the Greek language—actually has four distinct words for love. If you would like to read an elegant treatment of this phenomenon, I would commend to you C. S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves. As usual, Lewis has a masterful way of explaining the significance of these words. In any case, these four New Testament Greek words for love include:
- phileo: that’s the bond of friendship between brothers and sisters, or business partners, or coworkers in a particular endeavor, with an emphasis on the word “bond.” Stronger than a casual connection, phileo, at least according to Aristotle, expresses itself generally in one of three ways as friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of the good. In the large majority of the cases, phileo is reciprocal and balanced between the two parties. Phileo—filial love—is the root from which we get “Philadelphia” also known as “The City of Brotherly Love.” Phileo is born from a sense of attachment or of an unbreakable bond.
- storge: that’s affection—the love of a parent for a child or the kind of fondness that one feels toward someone that one likes more than casually. When I say, “I love Dennis Miller,” what I’m really saying is that I have great affection for Dennis Miller. Since I don’t really know the comedian Dennis Miller personally—I only know him through his daily radio show and weekly television appearances—I am basing my expressed feelings on observation and on what I imagine a genuine relationship with him might entail. Sometimes “storge” and “phileo” go hand-in-hand, such as with the feelings you might have toward a close friend. The amount of each type of love in any given relationship may rest on how close that friendship really is.
- eros: that’s the intense physical desire or attraction—we get the word “erotic” from this Greek root. Though normally relegated to describing carnal relationships, some ancient writers use eros to describe a love of hopefulness for intimacy in the future, where actual carnal contact is set aside and the one consumed by eros simply immerses himself or herself in the pleasure of anticipated feeling.
- agape: that’s God-breathed love. This last, this God-breathed love, holds such power. C. S. Lewis summarizes this as follows:
“God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing—or should we say ‘seeing’? there are no tenses in God—the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a ‘host’ who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and ‘take advantage of’ Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves.”
You may wonder what part does love really play within a body of believers. Whenever we gather for worship, did we all end up together by chance? And do we have any responsibility with regard to loving one another? Here again is C. S. Lewis:
“But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ can truly say to every group of Christian friends ‘You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.’ The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.”
So, the Greek language gives us much greater precision in saying, “I love you.” And the “love” we’re talking about in this instance—the sixth of the nine virtues—is the God-breathed kind.
Number seven in our list of virtues that define a truly obedient servant of Christ is patience. The late William Barclay, a noted Bible scholar, states that the most illuminating fact about this word is that it is commonly used in the New Testament to describe the attitude of God toward mankind.
“If God had been a man He would have wiped out this world long ago, but He has that patience which bears with sinning and will not just quickly cast us off.”
So, in our dealing with our fellowman we must reproduce this loving, forbearing, forgiving, patient attitude that God displays toward us.
We’ve already cover number eight, joy, so, finally, we come to number nine: self-control. This is the quality of not becoming victim to bad habits or vices. In 1 Corinthians 9:27 the Apostle Paul uses the same Greek word for self-control to describe an athlete’s discipline of his body:
27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
As you’ve probably noted, the words overlap some, and yet these nine cover a great range of virtues. The two verses of Scripture at the beginning of this blog post contain this list.
The Apostle Paul has been encouraging the people who comprise the church in Galatia to walk in the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh. The result of this will be the fruit of the Spirit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
In our churches—in the relationships we form between brothers and sisters in Christ—do these qualities become an apparent force that guards the bond of love between us that Christ has forged with the shedding of His precious blood? Do you exhibit these essential qualities, these “Fruit of the Spirit” in your life? Do I exhibit them in mine?
Will you pray with me?
Thank You, God, for loving us. Thank You for sending Jesus to be our Savior. Thank You for sending us Your Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
May the power of Your Holy Spirit so fill us that we become embued with these fruitful evidences of Your grace within us.
Thank You, Father, for the promise of Your Presence. And, thank You for hearing our prayer in and through the precious Name of Your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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Author’s Note: I am indebted to my spiritual mentor, Rev. Dr. David R. Mains, who some years ago preached a message on his radio broadcast, The Chapel of the Air, entitled “The Fruit of the Spirit.” That message formed the basic foundation for this blog post.
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