We’ll spread some top soil, plant some onions & radishes, start setting up for the tomatoes, work on the compost, maybe work on the fence, and dig further into John 15.See you there!
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Gardening Saturday, April 26--See you there around 9:00 AM
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Things are coming up
Checked the garden late this afternoon and things are coming up: some beets, turnips, collards, mustard greens & bok choy.
Pray for good weather to help those grow and so we can get the rest of the beds planted.
Also, thank God for all He has done & continues to do!
Monday, April 7, 2014
John 15:3--More About Pruning
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the
gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit,
while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more
fruitful. 3 You are already
clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”
The text and context of the highlighted phrase
describes at least three other things about how God prunes us into
fruitfulness.
A point of clarification is needed before we get to those things. Although
v. 3 does not use the word “prune,” the Greek word translated as “clean” (katharos) has the
same root as the word translated as “prune” (kathairo), and
their meanings are functionally synonymous.
We can therefore infer things about being pruned from what Jesus said
about being clean.
All right, on to the substance.
First, the text stresses the importance of God’s word in pruning. Jesus tells
us that one way we are pruned/cleaned is through “the word” He has “spoken.” That is consistent with scripture. It repeatedly stresses the
benefits of and need to meditate on God’s word. Psalm
1:1-2; Psalm
119:6;
Psalm119:99; Deuteronomy
11:18; Joshua
1:8.
See also 2
Timothy 3:16-17;
Hebrews
4:12.
The more we think abut God’s word the more it identifies what is and isn’t
fruitful in our lives.
Second, the context tells us that we play an active part in being
pruned/cleaned. The folks Jesus is speaking to here were cleaned by the word He
had “spoken to” them, and that only happened because they were there to hear
it. They had to give up other things, things that were not bad in of
themselves, to be able to spend that time with Jesus. We too have to give up
other things to be pruned/cleaned.
Third, the context also tells us that being pruned is not the same thing as
being perfect. Jesus was speaking to His original disciples here, and we know
that they were not perfect. For example, Peter will deny Jesus within hours of the
instruction preserved in this passage. We also know that from the rest of
scripture. Abraham, Moses, and David were all pruned to extraordinary
fruitfulness, but they were not perfect.
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