(January 20, 2015 at 1:30 am)Brakeman Wrote:Quote:Matthew 7:15-20New King James Version (NKJV)
You Will Know Them by Their Fruits
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
How much good fruit would one logically expect from a christian?
If a christian is filled with the spirit of god, guided by the spirit of god and converses daily with god, AND given the claim that god is infinitively good, then a percentage of this "goodness" would be expected to rub off on a christian. Even if the amount that rubs off were to be as little as 1/100,000 of one percent, because god is infinitely good, the christian would flood the world with goodness. Now given the natural human limitations, we still would expect the christians to be spectacularly good given their "1st hand Knowledge" of the greatness and goodness of god.
We should see spectacularly large piles of good "fruit" around the christians we see everyday.
But we don't. In fact we don't see anything statistically significant at all let alone stellar differences.
If we call out any of the "TRUE CHRISTIANS TM" on this board, they can give us nothing spectacular to show how their true fruits are anything but marginally better than the average Joe.
So by Christs own measure, there are no true christians.
(By the way, how does one test if a tree has been bad?)
In trying to determine Spiritual fruit one must first define it.
I know you and several other's have tried to make a go of it based off your 'morality.' The problem is your 'morality' is not the measure the bible uses.
For that we need to look at Gal 5:22 But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person’s life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these kinds of things.
These are the Spiritual Fruit as defined by Scripture.
