Fruits of the Spirit

Feelings, Functions, and Fruit

Posted by Thomas Smith on Dec 23, 2011 in Sundries | 1 comment

One of my most popular parish missions has been Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit, taken from Galatians 5:22-23. These nine characteristics are at the core of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. His letter is a sharp and urgent argument, with nothing less than the Good News of Jesus Christ at stake. Almost immediately following Paul’s first missionary journey, agitators called the Judaizers, retraced Paul’s journey challenging his credentials and offering a counterfeit gospel to the newly converted Gentiles. Although Paul’s urgency causes him to dispense with the traditional Thanksgiving in the beginning, he doesn’t