What is this power--as it applies to us? I gather John thought it could resemble fire.
Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works. (Farrar)
Resurrection is certainly a tremendous power, not remotely like anything we can do.
Purification needs a form of power too.
How do we walk in the works He created for us without being double-minded?
Jesus spoke of fruitless branches being pruned and of fruitful soils--there's more to the Christian life than going to heaven. There's advantage to living a life with some fruit, not just having a deathbed conversion. That power isn't just the resurrection to new life; it has impact and fruit.
Some fruits of the Spirit appear in action as well as in internal state. Or they appear in not-doing; and some appear in contrast to a particular situation. Patience never becomes visible until there's a need for it.
| Fruit | Appears | Opposing |
| love | Actions | |
| joy | Internal | |
| peace | "Inactions" | conflict |
| patience | stress | |
| kindness | Action | |
| goodness | Action | |
| faithfulness | (In)Actions | temptation |
| gentleness | Action | |
| self-control | (In)Actions | temptation |
"You gave me all these talents and warned me that I'd better show some return on using them!""You only know how to use them for worldly fruit. You haven't the power. These other things aren't little. They have My power and love."
Joy seems to be a bit of a special case. It doesn't appear much in action, or in inaction, only in our internal state. Is that our hoped-for state when the rest of these are appearing as they should? Maybe we should focus on the rest of the list.
We famously need help in order to show love to some people, and a double helping of power to do so whole-heartedly.
There's a difference between not knowing how disastrous the situation is and knowing and being confident in God. (It seems to be more fun to be panicky and angry.) I don't know about you, but I get distracted away from peace very easily.
Patience is nobody's favorite fruit--except in somebody else. I often could use some input from the eternal to get me through a chunk of painful time.
These don't seem very dramatic. Power isn't the first word that comes to mind with "goodness" or "gentleness", though if I work backwards from "self-control" it is clearer why it's needed.
"One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And one who rules his spirit, than one who captures a city."
It's just not very dramatic.
Tolkien's interpretation of this seems to have been that Fire in this sense is the divine power of creation, and when passed onto created beings seems to be the endowment of free will.
ReplyDeletehttp://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Secret_Fire
That's plausible from where I sit; it's a more religious reading of Kant's insight that freedom of will is the real dividing line between those things that have dignity that must be respected in the world, and those things that can be bought and sold without immorality.