no fruit

Hi, Rachel. Welcome to the Baptist Board.

You lovingly tell such people, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves" (2 Cor. 13:5). Tell them about when you got saved and then ask for a testimony from them about how they got saved. It may be that they are confused about what a real Christian is, and you can lead them to Christ.

We once had an older lady start coming to our church because her liberal church in Tokyo was too far away. We visited her and she told us she was a Christian because she had been baptized (sprinkled) 20 years ago. She said she hadn't understood much at that time, but the pastor told her to go ahead and be baptized anyway!

So I asked her if she would go to Heaven when she died. She wasn't sure about that, but listened carefully as we gave the Gospel. All of a sudden her eyes lighted up and she said, "I understand now. You are talking about the Heaven of the Bible, and I was thinking about the Paradise of Buddhism!" She understood that day the true Gospel, and trusted Christ as Savior.:jesus:

 

Welcome to the Board, Rachel. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people pretending to be Christians and have no idea what a Christian is. One woman told me she was a Christian because she was an American. After all, everyone knows this is a Christian nation, right? That's obvious by all the slaughtered unborn babies, homosexuality being made an "alternate lifestyle" and even allowing them to marry and ordaining them as ministers, all the many crimes taking place constantly, and people everywhere profaning the name of God and His Son. Then many of those who claim to be Christians can't be told from the non-Christians by the way they live. I've seen non-Christians who lived better than some "professing" Christians.

 

I've gone so far as to say there are many in this world today who may possess the salvation of God, yet they are not Christians in any way, shape or form. A true Christian is a follower of Christ and anyone who consistently refuses to be instructed out of God's word and conform their lives in obedience to it, is not a Christian. I use the term faux or pseudo-Christian. Not realizing it at the time, I've been guilty of this myself and repented.

 

That's true Granny G. "Christian" means "Christ like", and there are many saved people in the world who aren't Christian.

I myself am guilty of mis-using the word, although I've tried to make the distinction by using "saved person". But, often, when I understand what someone is saying, I don't think about it.

I also make it a point to distinguish between "lost" and "unsaved".

But, sometimes it's difficult to break the habits of a lifetime, eh?

 

Luk 6:43¶For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

 

Ah, but what is said about the tree that produces no fruit at all?

 

You know...it's not really a tree!

 

fruitless tree ?

 

Oh, yes. Bad growing season...late frost...any damage caused by the elements.

Oh, yeah...I also don't recall seeing any fruit coming form the pine trees or oak tree in my yard

 

Define Fruit....!!

Okay folks....we need to be both Biblical and SPECIFIC. What IS BIBLE FRUIT?? Is is souls (and nothing but..) or is it the "fruit of the Spirit" as defined in Galatians chapter 5...or is it both? I have been saved since (at least) 1977 and to my knowledge I have never directly led anyone to the Lord although I have witnessed and I have distributed many gospel tracts. This matter of "bearing fruit" tends to weigh heavily on me when I get to thinking about it or see a discussion like this one......So.....What is it?

Greg Sr.raying: :saint:

 

I would say both.

Not all fruit is visible. Nor may all our fruit be produced in our lifetime.

Would 'sowing and watering' be considered fruitful? I think so. After all it is God that gives the increase.

 

I agree with Mex.

I mean, we can't look at Adoniram Judson and say he wasn't fruitful because for the first 7 years of his ministry he didn't see any salvations. There are many who would have looked at him during those years and written him off as being unspiritual, or not preaching right, or using unBiblical methods.....or whatever.

Id add just a little bit here, and Im not trying to cut down the OPer, or claim that she's judging harshly, but I don't think we should be looking at other people in order to determine if they're fruitful or not....UNLESS we are being required to evaluate them for some position of ministry in our churches.

 

If you look at "salvations" as fruit, you've got some problems with the pictures painted in Scriptures.

Fruit is that which brings joy to the saints.

But, he is the vine, we are the branches. If all we produce is more branches, how fruitful have we been? Is it the branch's responsibility to cultivate more branches?

 

well you know HoG,

any analogy carried too far ceases to make sense.


but I believe "fruit" just refers to results. Growth in your spiritual life is a "fruit".

 

So, how do we determine just how far God could make an analogy go? I thought he was able to make one perfectly, but I guess I was wrong.

(BTW, don't think that I'm saying that we're not supposed to evangelize, just that considering the "number of decisions" is a man-made reasuring stick.)

 

we determine how far by how far GOD takes the analogy.

I don't think we can rule out souls led to Christ as a fruit. Perhaps though, it might be better classified as a result of the fruit of a person's life.

Does that sound better to you?

 

An apple tree (planted from an apple seed) produces apples. Likewise, the Holy Spirit produces Christian character in the believer that is just like His own, full of love, joy, peace, etc.

In Prov. 11:30, where we see the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, winning souls is parallel (and in this case therefore of similar meaning) to a tree of life. Therefore, a righteous person produces something like himself (or herself), another righteous person.

While Galatians 5 is clearly the fruit of the Spirit, passages like John 12:24 and John 15:1-8 are clearly speaking of the fruit of a Christian--other Christians.

 

Hi bapmom.

Just to give perspective to Judson's life, I know the 7 year figure has been often used, but I believe it was just 6 years. Judson was very strict in what he considered a convert, and we would probably look at some fruit he had after 6 years and call them saved.

Furthermore, Judson had no language school, no text books, no Burmese grammar, no dictionaries, no tracts and no Bible in the language. He ended up writing his own Burmese grammar book, his own Burmese-English dictionary (some years ago I saw a new one for sale in Tokyo--it was so good it is still being printed), write his own tracts and translate the entire Bible. I'd say under those circumstances 6 (or 7) years is pretty fast! (I feel lazy when I read his life story.) By the way, if you can get The Life of Adoniram Judson by his son Edward, I consider it the best missionary biography ever written outside of the book of Acts!

God bless.

 

Looking at fruit, I see one thing in common in all types....

All fruit contains seeds!

The fruit of a Christian contains the seed of the Gospel.
It is the good we do in Christ's name that points to Calvary.

Another characteristic of fruit is that it is sweet...
The deeds done for Christ has a sweet smell to them.

The seed gets planted, and soon we have another plant giving out more fruit with the seeds of the gospel in it...

This is my take on it anyway.