In many churches I have seen and been a part of, it seems we have a set of fruits that are not spiritual, yet we portray them as such. I will admit that many of these I have struggled with, these false fruits. These fruits are often damaging to our ministry if they are recognized to be false fruits. There are many false fruits that exist in our lives and ministry, I will list a few that come to mind and ones that have left a foot print (or a boot print) in my life (or backside).
1. Leadership. Leadership is a good thing, and there is no shortage of books, classes and resources on leadership. We are in love the concept of leadership. We want to lead, lead better and be a better leader. We are in love with leadership. The problem is, we are not suppose to be leaders. We already have a leader, He is the head, we are the body. Jesus already gave us the vision, the direction and strategy. We just got to do it. If you want to lead, be the lead follower. Just like Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Jesus is the leader, lead others to follow by following.
2. Growth. We love growth don’t we. We had a whole moment dedicated to church growth. We are all about growth, and church growth is a good thing. It’s good for a church to grow, but we have equated a growing church with a spiritual church. We have forgotten that sometimes God prunes so growth comes later. We have also taken the opinion that growth means God is blessing. We forget the LDS church is growing, the religion of Islam is growing, lots of very un-Christian groups are growing. Growth is sometimes a fruit of popularity and persuasion, but not a fruit of the spirit.
3. Knowledge. Knowing stuff is good, and knowing the Bible is even better, but knowledge is not a fruit of the spirit. Having knowledge in teaching is important, but knowing the word and living the word are often two different things. Have knowledge, but put it into practice. Too often, knowledge is used to enslave people in legalism, guilt or manipulation. 1Corinthians 13 tells us that having all knowledge is worthless without love.
4. Authority. Authority is like leadership, and with authority, we enforce our standards. Having standards is good, and having some authority is fine, but often with authority we loose patience and gentleness, both which are fruit of the spirit. Often authority creates a situation that there are losers and outsiders. It can create an elite class within the church who has all the power, makes all the decisions and closes doors to ministries. We have to keep the authority with Jesus.
5. Numbers. Being Baptist, we are all familiar with this one. Bodies, Baptisms and Bucks. How much, how many, all the people showing up. Now, I love Baptisms and I love it when people are baptized, and I don’t want to get into a debate on Baptisms and which one are valid, but often we baptize believers and those drive up the numbers. We love to write down numbers and report them, how much we give to mission offerings and how many people get wet. These things are great, but they MUST come as a result of the spiritual maturity and spiritual life of a church. We can dunk people, get money and fill chairs without really leading anyone to faith in Christ and with having them grow. If we start with Christ, then the 3 Bs are wonderful, fabulous and gifts from God. Without starting with Christ, they are false fruits.
These fruits are not bad things in themselves, but often they become the end to themselves. These things can be the result of the body of Christ having the fruit of the spirit, but often we bypass the fruits and just want the results. To get the results without having the fruit of the spirit causes us to do damage to each other. Let’s make sure our results are coming from our love for Christ and service to Him, and not our desire to be great.
I don’t know anyone who ever referred to any of those things as a “fruit of the spirit” and I think it’s a real stretch to do so. The Bible defines what the Fruit of the Spirit is, and I think that’s that.
You may be confusing fruit with gifts. And in that area, some of the things you mentioned are valid gifts. Leadership, knowledge, authority .. we’d sure better have some of that in the church, or we’d be in a bigger mess than we are.
Growth & numbers are by-products, obviously, of other things.
I am not doing either Bob. We don’t call them fruits, but often act like they are. We often strive more for these things than actual fruits.
I think, and Dan can correct me, is that these are things we sometimes view as evidences (or fruit) of the Spirit but are sometimes products of the flesh more than of the spirit.
I’m not really sure any of us ought to be viewing thongs as evidences of anything…
You, my friend, are nerd.
I have fat fingers and should not comment from my Droid. (and fortunately, with the power of editing, I can correct any errors that might have been made)
yeah my grandpa blames his droids on a lot of things too….
These are not the droids you are looking for.
You say that as though there was something wrong with being a nerd.
Maybe, and correct me if I’m wrong as well, they could very well be evidences of our faith but maybe what Dan is eluding to, is to the dangers that these gifts can bring, if not taken, with the right motive and that being, pointing to Christ.
And this goes with everything we do, say, teach; if it does not point back and/or lead to Christ, then what good is it really in the edifying of ourselves and the church?
What I am saying is we often view these things as spiritual gifts, as signs of blessing, as God’s gifts, but in reality, each of these are traits that are seen and found in the world. They are man’s abilities, not spiritual gifts. Cults have them, other religions have them, businesses and orginizations have them, they are not gifts of Gods, or even Godly attributes. They are just human qualities and human produced results.
Dan, what if your list were contrasted with the one found in Romans 12?
What you have pointed out are those things which we might be easily impressed by. Interesting.
Also, some of what you listed have been pointed to in defense of a particular person in order to prove how godly or faithful said person is.
Another descriptor that Dan could have used is “FALSE IDOL.”
The times I’ve been around large numbers of pastors (which has been few) and the stories I’ve heard of average conversations at conventions often start with, “how is your church doing.” And, what is meant by that are the 3 Bs which have nothing directly to do with the sanctification of a congregation.
Our conversations on this blog (and others) when it comes to controversial issues I would venture always revolve around one of these 5 false fruits listed by Dan and one he didn’t mention: money.
Just like these false fruit, the money we have isn’t ours, it’s God’s. He gives, not the people. Instead of wondering/praying about our people growing in their walk and becoming more like Jesus or about more evangelism leading to more salvations, we are more concerned about straining gnats over every dime.
It is sad that we put so much emphasis on the value on some worthless sheets of cotton paper currency printed by a temporary government. No wonder business meetings can be cantankerous. No wonder that so many don’t get along on purpose not because of theology, but because of money.
When we hold these fleeting things too dear, our people double down on our actions and attitudes. There is little wonder then that they do not let go of their hold on this world… little wonder that they do not exhibit more true Fruit of the Spirit.
Good post Dan. I remember my father telling me about a difficult time in his ministry as I was starting up as a youth pastor. He told me about a period where they lost a good number of their congregation over disputes and unhealthy attitudes. At the time it was very discouraging to him since his numbers were dwindling rather than growing. God used that as a pruning time though so that the church there that was left was full of unity. It is now thriving in terms of number and doing God’s work.
This post was a good reminder for me today. Thanks for sharing.