Posts
So this morning I asked Him about this phrase and my discomfort with it. Why did Paul want to obtain fruit among the Romans? It seems a little bit selfish for Paul to go around picking fruit from other people. The picture that my mind formed was one who was walking into someone else's vineyard or orchard and just picking the best of the fruit for himself without owning the property. There seemed to be selfish overtones of pride involved as well but all of these things so subtle that I could not even ask the questions. But today I decided to confront them, so I challenged God why Paul said this.
At first I didn't hear anything in response, but that is not unusual either. I have to give Him time to talk and develop His answer and most often it is in observing the context. So I lay out the question and then leave it open while I poke around and see what the Spirit might bring up in the process.
It was not very long at all before clues began popping up and my own assumptions began to be challenged. The first clue was “I am under obligation”. Whatever it was that Paul was thinking when he spoke of obtaining fruit it involved a feeling of obligation, not exploitation as my first feelings assumed. The following verse added more, “I am eager to preach the gospel to you also”. Whatever this is about obtaining fruit meant it involved putting something into them as well as getting something from them.
Then the real definition of gospel came to mind and even more sense began to develop in this analogy. The gospel is a revelation of the sweetness of God that flavors whatever fruit Paul is looking to obtain from them. Now the idea of Paul bringing to them the sweetness that is needed by them changes my first assumptions and I see that Paul is focused much more on what he is bringing to them than on what he is trying to get for himself from them. In fact, he is most likely not even thinking much about fruit for himself as much as fruit for the glory of God's reputation. Paul is living in the passion of God that possesses his whole life making him feel under obligation to everyone else to ignite the same passion of God in their souls as that that burns in his own heart. Paul is eagerly going from place to place under the compulsion of his personal experience of grace passionately looking to inject the sweetness of the gospel into anyone who is open and ripe to transform them into fruit for God to enjoy.
So, contrary to my initial assumptions (no surprise here, but a healthy growing event), Paul is not operating from a base of selfishness looking for accumulating credits for "successful evangelism", but is burning with the passion of God to restore the souls and capture the affections of as many people as possible for God's sake. He is being a true friend of the Bridegroom, drawing others into an intimacy with God much more than looking out for his own interests.
As I look back over the surrounding verses I notice more clearly that the fruit that Paul is looking to obtain and enhance is most likely faith itself. In verse 8 he declares that their fruit of faith is already being proclaimed throughout the whole world. But apparently he wants to come to them so he can increase their fruit. Whether he wants to increase it in the lives of the existing believers or produce more by adding to the number of believers is not made clear. But knowing Paul he likely wants to do all the above.
Paul's attitude is revealed in a number of phrases that show up throughout this section. “I thank God for you all”, “I serve (God) in my spirit”, “unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers”, “I long to see you so that I may impart”, “I may be encouraged together with you”, “often I have planned to come to you”, and “I am under obligation”. These phrases betray a passion of love in sympathy with the heart of God that Paul shares for His children. This is a revelation of the very fruit, the relationship of faith inspired by God's faith, already being produced in the life of Paul that he wants to see produced in the lives of more believers as they become ignited with the passion of God through intimacy with Him themselves.
Someone once told me, and I have found it to be very true, that hidden underneath the difficult passages of Scripture that seem so say something contrary to what we know about the gospel, there usually lies a profound revelation about God that is waiting to surprise us if we are willing to dig deeper and keep an open mind to what the Spirit of God is waiting to reveal to us. In this case it was only a slight confusion on my part that God was ready to correct with much better understanding. There are other passages much more difficult to reconcile on the surface that have far richer and deeper revelations waiting to be brought to the surface if the searcher is willing to use the correct lenses to examine them carefully. No wonder Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, for it really is the power of God that saves, restores, returns us to our original purpose and destiny and design.
