The Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5 KJV

Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV):

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Notice: the word is fruit, not fruits. It is one harvest of nine parts, grown from one root by one Spirit.

The nine fruits

• Love — agape — the love that gives, not the love that gets.
• Joy — not happiness (which the world sells) but the deep gladness that survives sorrow.
• Peace — peace with God (Romans 5:1) and peace inside the household.
• Longsuffering — patient endurance under wrong. The Lord’s own patience toward us.
• Gentleness — a kindness that adapts to the weak.
• Goodness — the practical, everyday goodness that a household lives in.
• Faith — here meaning faithfulness — the quality that keeps promises and keeps showing up.
• Meekness — strength under God’s hand; the meekness of the Lord Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29).
• Temperance — self-control; the mastery of appetite that keeps the Christian free.

Family practice

A Christian household is a garden where the Spirit grows fruit slowly. Fruit is not made; fruit is grown. The gardener waters, weeds, waits.

Take one fruit per week as the household’s focus:

• Week 1 — love: at whom is it hardest for us to love this week?
• Week 2 — joy: where can we speak thanks today?
• Week 3 — peace: what needs reconciling in this house?
• Week 4 — longsuffering: whom are we tempted to give up on?
• Week 5 — gentleness: who in the house needs a softer word?
• Week 6 — goodness: what small good thing can we do today?
• Week 7 — faith / faithfulness: what promise are we keeping?
• Week 8 — meekness: where are we asked to yield without giving up truth?
• Week 9 — temperance: what appetite needs to be brought under Christ?

Reflection

Paul lists the fruit in Galatians 5 immediately after listing the works of the flesh (5:19-21). Two harvests are always growing in a life. Two harvests are always growing in a household. The Christian household chooses daily which one it is watering.

The fruit of the Spirit describes the Lord Jesus perfectly. He is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. When the Spirit forms Christ in us (Galatians 4:19), these nine fruits grow.

Household prayer

Holy Spirit of God, grow in our household the fruit of thy own hand: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Take up whatever in us resists thee, and give us the patience of the gardener who waits for the harvest. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christian tradition

• The nine fruits have shaped Christian ethical teaching since the earliest centuries.
• Chrysostom, Augustine, and Aquinas all wrote extensively on Galatians 5:22-23.
• The nine fruits appear in art and iconography as a nine-branched tree or a ninefold vine.
• Wesley: “There is no law against them” — no law can rule them out; they are the law’s own goal.

Related Atlas links

• Paul — who wrote Galatians
• The Whole Armour of God
• The Beatitudes — the character in Matthew 5
• 1 Corinthians 13 — the great chapter on love

Room connections

Where this entry meets the household in the wider house of CrossAIHub.

• Family (Kitchen Table) — a nine-week family season, one fruit per week.
• Kids (Kids Kingdom) — children learn nine words that shape a lifetime.
• Pray (Chapel) — ask the Spirit for each fruit by name.
• Wisdom Garden — the Fathers on Christian character.
• Read (Library) — read Galatians in full — it is short.

Further reading

Galatians 5:16-26 (KJV) — the full passage.

Romans 5:1-5 (KJV) — the growth of Christian character.

1 Corinthians 13 (KJV) — the great love chapter.

John Wesley, sermons on Galatians 5.

Elsewhere in the Atlas

• Paul
• The Whole Armour of God
• The Beatitudes
• 1 Corinthians 13
• Formation cluster peers:
  • The Lord’s Prayer
  • The Ten Commandments
  • The Beatitudes
  • The Whole Armour of God
  • The Great Commission
• Return to the atrium — the Atlas’s main room.