Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Fruit stories
Matthew 7:20
Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Over the last few months, I have been learning somethings about fruits that have been fascinating. Well, fascinating to me, people who work in agriculture and related disciplines knew these things all the time. I am learning that there are variations in the taste, texture, and other characteristics of fruits of the same species and variety, based on environmental factors. So that some soils, and some rainfall patterns, and some variations in humidity affect the fruit that we will finally harvest from the tree.
So a well-trained specialist could examine the fruit and build a profile beyond the basics. So that all Buxton Spice mangoes are not the same, so that a Buxton Spice mango, grown in Buxton – a village on the Atlantic coast of Guyana, will vary in texture, flavour, and other characteristics from a Buxton Spice mango grown in Linden, a town in Guyana located 65 miles from the coast as the crow flies, with soils that are mostly sand.
Fruits tell stories. Stories about species, varieties, soil and other environmental factors, and fruits also tell stories about the tree from which they were harvested and sometimes that can tell stories about husbandry, the practices of the farmer who nurtured the tree.
Jesus in a very lengthy discourse on the mountain, usually called the Sermon on the Mount, turned his attention to the cluttered religious space of His day, and I assume, was delivering a warning to us about the even more cluttered religious space of our time. When the religious space is cluttered there are going to difficulties differentiating between the genuine and the counterfeit.
The Christian space is no less cluttered than the overall religious space, as a matter of fact, the Christian space might be the most cluttered religious space. There is every kind of tradition, numerous denominations, and an explosion of independents. There are also many groups that consider themselves Orthodox but are considered by other groups to be cults.
It is very hard to differentiate sometimes. In the office where I work every day, among about 15 of us based on when you count, we have mostly persons who identify as Christian. These Christians in my office would define themselves as evangelicals, Pentecostals, traditional, independent, Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Sabbath keepers who are not Seventh Day Adventists and so on. This is clutter man, and it’s just 15 of us.
Now we all can’t be right. Somewhere in here, there is the truth, some truth, not so much truth and downright heresy. But how do we ultimately get this matter resolved? Emotions run very high when we touch someone’s religious beliefs and, so you want to tread cautiously. It is easier to share the Gospel of the saving grace of Jesus with a non-believer, that to try to clarify matters of faith among 15 passionate followers of whatever Christian variety they follow.
This situation is not a harmless one that we could just ignore. It’s not the fruit and vegetable market when you could buy the variety of your preference like I purchase bananas. False religion has everlasting consequences and must be addressed or, at least, avoided.
In Matthew 7:15-20 Jesus gives a variety of descriptions that suggest that those who peddle false religion are not harmless, they are in fact very dangerous. He calls the peddlers of false religion “ravenous wolves” pointing out their deception practised by an appearance like harmless sheep. Jesus then switched from an animal metaphor to a plant metaphor pointing out that you don’t go to the wild thornbushes and thistles, pretty and flowering though some of them are, in order to get good fruit to eat. It’s not how they look, and not how they sound either, it’s what they produce.
In one sense, Jesus is challenging us to listen to the fruit’s stories. As a counsellor, I am often given a seat in front row of the lives of people who have been ravished by various situations in their lives, whether this be family discord, relationship stress, workplace discrimination, and the like. I even get to see the effects of people falling victim to extremely evil rituals and demonic practices. But there is something that shows up often as well. People, sincere believers, whose lives were totally destroyed by false teachers of “Christian” religion.
Jesus knew the historic pursuit of religions charlatans seeking to shipwreck the faith of the vulnerable. In Jeremiah 6:14 and 8:11 we see them in operation. They were called wolves back then too, see Ezekiel 22:27 and Zephaniah 3:3.
Paul warned the leaders of the Ephesian church about this in Acts 20:29 saying, “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”
When we listen to the fruit stories we get a picture of what is taking place in the lives of people at the hands of false religious teachers and leaders. We can identify false teaching, without getting into deep theological arguments to identify their doctrinal errors, and without challenging their rituals and practices. We can listen to and examine the fruit they have ultimately produced in the lives of people and know who they really are and what they are about.
Think on these things:
- Do you know Christian Doctrine – what you believe and why you believe it?
- Can you tell the difference between what is taught at your church and what is taught at others?
- Do you think that it matters what church you attend and who your teachers are?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be able to recognise false teachers and not fall victim to them.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex