The Fruit of the Spirit: Singular, Not Plural

Look at the noun Paul uses before you look at the list. He doesn’t write “the fruits of the Spirit” — plural, a basket of separate items you might pick and choose from. He writes “the fruit,” singular, as if love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control are facets of one thing rather than nine competing options.

Read it in the terminal: bible galatians 5

Contrast with a list just above

This verse doesn’t arrive alone. A few lines earlier, Paul lists the “works of the flesh” — sexual immorality, hatred, jealousy, outbursts of anger, and more (5:19-21) — a genuine list, plural, disconnected items that don’t require each other. Adultery doesn’t need envy to exist. But love, in Paul’s grammar, apparently can’t be separated out from joy and peace and the rest without becoming something else.

Grown, not manufactured

Fruit is also not manufactured — it’s grown, and growing takes time, roots, and something other than the fruit itself doing the work. Paul’s whole argument in Galatians is that trying to produce this character through willpower and law-keeping is the wrong method entirely. The Spirit produces it; the person bears it, the way a tree bears what its roots feed it.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” — Galatians 5:22-23

Questions for study

1. Does thinking of these nine as one “fruit” rather than nine “fruits” change how you evaluate your own growth?
2. Which quality on the list do you find easiest? Which do you avoid noticing you lack?
3. What’s the practical difference between trying harder to be patient and bearing fruit through the Spirit?
4. Why do you think Paul says “against such things there is no law”?

cd .. cd ~ (back to terminal)