Fruits of the Flesh
For the fruit of the flesh is:Romance, Happiness, Compromise, Coolness, Friendliness, Social Awareness, Security, and Autonomy
Let's see them side by side:
SPIRIT--------FLESH
Love----------Romance
Joy-----------Happiness
Peace---------Compromise
Patience------Coolness
Kindness------Friendliness
Goodness------Social Awareness
Faithfulness--Security
Self-Control--Autonomy
Each fruit of the flesh is a counterfeit. It can be easy to see them as worthy of our effort, or even as equivalent to what the Spirit desires. I will explain the difference between the left column and the right in future posts.
Labels: bible, culture, fruits of the flesh, holy spirit
Posted at 9:06 AM
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3 Comments:
Nice work. Sometimes powerful truth gets lost in subtleties.
Speaking of subtleties, have you ever heard preachers make a big ado about the word "blessed" in the beatitudes, how it certainly cannot mean happiness because happiness is circumstantial? You may be surprised to know that, in the Greek, the distinction is not made. Makarioi is translated, literally, with "happy" as synonymous with "blessed".
Eisegesis, as opposed to exegesis, is what happens when we read our cultural understanding of certain words back into the text as if that's what the author intended, and that's what's happened in this case. The point being that "joy" and "happiness" really are not distinguishable biblically, though you might be able to make a case for a connotative difference in the English.
Nice insights. I will address this when I expound my thoughts on each fruit.
But as a preview, I will ask you what the distinction is in Greek between "happiness" and "joy". Surely the words "blessed", "happy", and "joyful" don't all have identical definitions, but even if they did, remember that Greek language has connotation just like English does.
For now, I'll just say that there are two different words for joyful and happy. I'm not ready to equate these two at all. I think it's still possible (and helpful), at least in English, to define joy as going deeper than happiness, when we define happiness as circumstantial. That's something that can be brought out in preaching and teaching. The problem comes in (obviously) when we say "this biblical word means this", and it doesn't. I would like to see more credibility given to the idea that God actually wants us to be happy despite the suffering He promises us when we follow Jesus.
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