White Unto Harvest

Since I grew up in church, I got to hear many a sermon on John 4:35. Invariably it was more like a sales pitch on at least two levels. On one level it’s talking about the “lost souls” that are just ready for harvesting. On the other hand, it was also about needing “workers” to go out and “win souls”. I’ve always hated sales. Ever since I was little and I had to go around the neighborhood and get sponsors for a “Jump rope-athon”, to selling candy door to door for some prize. Later on, as an adult, I worked in a call center as an outbound sales agent for a telephone provider, and selling Kirby vacuums door to door. In every case, I hated it. The Kirby thing didn’t work out. The only ones that bought the vacuum were my folks. With the call center, I nearly got fired for not making quota. So whenever a pastor talked about this, I always rolled my eyes and groaned quietly; here we go again.

I was always the quiet, shy kid, with an ADHD problem. Since I was quiet and shy, you can imagine that I didn’t talk about Jesus much. I was never sure how to broach the subject. There were always a thousand questions that I had in my mind. It wasn’t until high school that I lead someone to Christ. But even the way I did that was not the norm. Instead of telling him how great his life was going to be, I told him he was essentially painting a target on himself and then running in between the front lines. Ironically, it worked. I was never the type that was one to “win the soul” and then drop them at the door of the church. That just wasn’t me. I never considered that right. I considered it my responsibility to disciple him, and I did.

Today, I saw something that reminded me of all this, but this time I had another thought. It occurred to me, that yes, the field is white unto harvest, and, it’s not just us harvesting!  The enemy knows his time is short, and knows that the field is indeed white unto harvest. He knows that there are people who are hungry and desperate, so he has his workers out there too. They may look like us. They may sound like us, but they are not us. We will know them by their fruit. Fruit is always revealed in the end. All this time I only imagined that it was us, the Father’s workers, working in the vineyard. Something to think about.

 

In Yeshua’s service

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Fruit – Intro

Fruit is going to the the topic of study over the next several studies. There is the obvious fruit, such as olive, dates, figs, wheat, barley, etc. and so on. Fruit can also mean produce. When we apply it to people, and in particular spiritually it’s the results of ones actions. In Gal 5 Paul talks about the fruit, or works, of the flesh and then contrasts it with the fruit of the spirit. Which “fruit” in verse 22 is karpos and is a noun nominative, masculine and singular. The online Peshitta gives an analysis of the Aramaic text. It shows that the word “fruit” is masculine, plural and emphatic. The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon gives a nice set of definitions.

In this study, I want to explore the symbolism of each of the various fruits mentioned in the bible and compare them to either works of the flesh or fruit of the spirit. To do this we’ll look at dyadic societies and their impacts on scripture. We’ll also look at commentaries and Jewish texts from Sefaria.org. We’ll also look at the various words in their original texts, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. We’ll look at Targums, so that we can get a feel from the people at that time. We’ll look at fruit in the TaNaKh and how it’s used and we’ll also see how it’s used in the New Testament, and see how Yeshua used it and compare it to the apostle Paul. Scripture defines scripture. By studying the words and how they’re used in each occasion, we’ll get a better understanding. I also want to utilize archaeology and anthropology whenever possible.

I have never studied fruit like this, so this will be a journey for me, and I invite you to take this journey with me. We will travel through history and gain the understanding and significance of fruit, produce, so that we can then understand how it’d applied spiritually. There is so much to cover, and so much to learn here. When I first thought about fruit, I was thinking, of course, fruit of the spirit, which is mentioned in Gal 5:22. I thought I could do a fairly quick write up on it. But as I looked into it, I started realizing that other things fit in to this as well. I was thinking of fruit, as in sweet, and even then fruit of the spirit from Gal 5:22. The problem with that is there is no context. No context from the chapter, none from the book of Galations, none from the New Testament and everything Yeshua taught about fruit, and certainly none from the TaNaKh and Torah. So with out context, I can’t hope to possibly learn and teach anything correctly. It’d just either be me parroting what I’ve heard, or just my own preconceptions. Both are dangerous.

One thing I learned very early on is that the fruit of the spirit is feminine, as a result, Tyler Dawn Rosenquist suggested I look into dyadic society. I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear that the fruit of the spirit was feminine, but I’d never heard of dyadic society before. After thinking on this for a bit, I speculated that if fruit of the spirit is feminine, then perhaps works of the flesh is masculine. At this point I am in the collecting information phase. There is just so much on this. Rico Cortes suggested looking into righteousness and justice, as connected with the fruit. That adds a whole new dimension. Rico said it would help define the fruit.

Often when I write, I have a general idea of what I want to say, but beyond that? No. When I write, it just flows from me. Trying to write in a manner like this will also be new to me, as it means following a format. There is much for me to read, in order to prepare. I’m no speed reader. In fact, because I’m mildly dyslexic I read aloud in my head, every word, and often times every letter. While I may have a high retention rate, it makes for slow reading. This is just the introduction, to let you all know what’s going on, what I have cooking, and what I intend to do, and where I’m going with all this. The last few weeks had been rough for me, as my pain was  a bit high. In the beginning of the day my lower back would hurt, later on my lower back wasn’t bothering me so much, but my shoulders were tight, due to problems with my neck.  The medicine was barely helping, so most of the time I’d lay down and rest. Well, as much as my ADHD would let me. Every few minutes I’d check on Facebook to see what was going on. While it satisfied my compulsion, it would often aggravate my neck.

I think, with the first post on fruit, I want to start in the TaNaKh, but I want to get vocabulary out of the way. I don’t want to give anything away. There’s just so much to look at and study. Once we have vocabulary out of the way, then we can begin with the verses in the TaNaKh and how it’s used and how the context defines it. Of course, once we start looking at verses, we’ll also look at archaeology and anthropology and all that stuff I mentioned above. By the time we get to Galations, we should have a very solid foundation and understanding for what Paul is saying. In any case, I hope you’ll join me as we study fruit.

 

In Yeshua’s service

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Little Decisions, Big Decisions

Some of us are better at introspection than others. I was asked once if I regretted anything. I pondered the question for a moment and said “no”. I then went on to explain that the reason I don’t regret choices I made is because I recognized that they helped to form and shape me into who I am today. If you take out even one choice, then it alters who I am.

When I was fourteen and living in Germany at the time, I picked up the Bible and started reading the Gospel of John. Previous to doing this I had always thought the disciples rather stupid and idiotic. I mean really, come on now, didn’t they know? As I pondered that, as I was reading the Gospel of John, I realized that the disciples didn’t know. I was looking at it from the benefit of history, but they didn’t have that view point. As I imagined myself there, maybe one of Yeshua’s followers, I realized that they would have been much like people today. They were just going about their normal daily lives. When I got to the betrayal and crucifixion I cried a little. I really hate crying, so even shedding a tear is a big deal to me. But that was the first time that I began to understand what it might have been like for them.

In the four Gospels it talks about those who are faithful in little will be faithful in much. The thing is, we all have a tendency to over estimate ourselves. We all like to think that we will handle the big decisions. Some picture themselves in persecution and imagine themselves as remaining true and faithful, but with out the little decisions that we’ve made along the way, it’s impossible to really know. Every choice we make, every decision we make builds upon the last and forms us, molds us into who we are and who we will become. Imagine building a sky scraper. You have to lay the foundation. Once you lay the foundation you then have to construct the supporting frame. You can’t skip over the foundation and supporting frame and start building the fiftieth floor. It just wont work. It has nothing to stand on. So it is in our lives. If you want to know how you’ll fair in persecution, or whatever, look at your past. How did you fair then? When you were in school, did you remain silent? Or did you go with the crowd? Or maybe you were faithful. We can do the same thing with where you worked in the past. When coworkers or your boss said or did something, how did you respond? How ever you responded in the past is likely going to be how you’ll respond in the future. Every choice we make now is based on the choices we made in the past. They are what forms us.

Now maybe in your past it hasn’t been so great. The good news is that you can choose now to change it. You can learn from your past and make a course correction. Now that you’re aware, what are you going to do? The choice is yours.

 

In Yeshua’s service

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