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 PrintableVersion The fruit of the Spirit is...Apples and pearsTHE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS… Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘I really must try harder to be patient’? Or joyful, or gentle, or self-controlled? This is often my own attitude when I come to the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5, and one which John Fesko in this little book blows right out of the water. As I started to read, I was excited about the prospect of learning the secret of gaining this oft-elusive fruit. But Fesko is clear that godliness will not come by my trying harder, but by the promised work of the Holy Spirit. In order to do this, he takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the Bible (I had to concentrate here), starting with the big picture of human sin in Genesis, the picture language of walking by the Spirit in Exodus, and the promise of the Servant and Spirit in Isaiah. The tour finishes by picking up the key idea of ‘walking by the Spirit’ in the context of Galatians. At this point we (finally) got into the nitty-gritty of what the ‘fruit’ looks like in practice. Fesko then quickly moved on to state that the word, prayer and the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are the way to obtain the fruit, which I found a little simplistic (though true!). This is a dense little book, giving perspective to those who want to be more patient (or joyful, or gentle…), but for whom trying harder doesn’t seem to work. Becky Croucher,
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