I came across a funny website name whilst doing some light reading on Fred Phelps and his slightly misguided attempts to sanctify the world. I won't link Phelps' website here, but in looking at what Wikipedia had to say on it, I found a section listing various parodies that were based on it. One of the comical websites was www.godhatesshrimp.com, citing Leviticus 11:12 as its influence. The other one, which brings me to the topic at hand, was www.godhatesfigs.com (which doesn't appear to be in existence anymore). This website uses the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree, found in Mark 11, as the basis for saying that God does in fact hate figs.
Humorous websites aside, this got me thinking about that little passage in Scripture. If you aren't overly familiar with it, the story goes that Jesus was hungry, saw a fig tree in bloom, went up to it to eat of its fruit, but found no fruit on it. Mark tells us that it wasn't the season for fig trees. So what did Jesus do? Well, he cursed the fig tree by saying "May no one ever eat fruit of you again".
Taken at face value, I found this puzzling. If it wasn't the season for fig trees to bear fruit, then why is Jesus cursing a fig tree for not having fruit on it? That seems unreasonable and arbitrary to me. I mean what's Jesus trying to teach his disciples by doing such a seemingly whimsical thing?
Enter R.C. Sproul.
In a message of his entitled Scripture and Culture, he uses this text as an example of things that can get lost in translation based on environments, culture and geography and so forth, and as a reason for explaining why it's important for us to try and understand the culture of Jesus' time in order to better understand the meaning of certain texts.
In proposing the apparent problems of this text to a former Seminary Professor of his, Sproul received a very good answer. This Professor was an expert in the Palestinian culture and landscape and so forth, and told Sproul that while there is in fact a season for fig trees (just as there is for strawberries and so on), there is one fig tree that bears fruit out of season. It would be like finding strawberries growing in January.
This would seem to be the tree that Jesus encounters, because we are told it's in bloom or in 'full leaf', despite the fact that we are told in the next sentence that 'it was not the season for figs'. In other words, this fig tree should have figs on it. So Jesus doesn't just curse a tree for no specific reason and with no specific lesson in mind. Sproul calls what Jesus does here an 'object lesson'. (I'm not implying that Sproul coined the term 'object lesson', just in case you're wondering.)
Jesus saw a tree from a far that appeared to have life and be bearing fruit. However, on closer inspection, he found the tree to be a fraud. Its appearance was deceptive. We're not told why exactly it wasn't bearing fruit, but we are told that it was in 'full leaf', so it should have been bearing fruit. The object lesson here for us is a warning against hypocrisy.
We can all look good from a far away distance. We can all dress up our characters as well as our bodies on Sunday morning, and have the appearance of real spiritual life and growth. We can form a set of rules such as the church at Colosse did ("Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch"), and do our best to keep them in a vain attempt at holiness. These things might look good at first glance, but on closer inspection, they are hiding our real selves. The lack of a true internal spiritual reality is being covered over by external 'godliness', which God can obviously see right through, but which we as human beings find more difficult to spot unless we get closer to such a person (which is hard, because such a person usually doesn't want to get too close to anyone).
This object lesson acts as both a warning and an encouragement to me. It's a warning in the sense that if I'm relying on myself and my own external performance, then I've missed the Christian life completely. Don't get me wrong here - living the Christian life will produce obvious external behaviour, of that I am sure. But when we detach the external from the internal, we are left as this fig tree was - seemingly fruitful from a distance, but on closer examination, void of any kind of true life which produces real fruit.
The encouragement is that it's not actually up to me alone to produce fruit. It's when I am joined with Christ, when I 'abide in Him', then I will bear fruit, for without Jesus I can do nothing (John 15). This isn't to suggest some kind of lazy Christianity where we just sit back and do nothing.
I'm reminded of the time when I was out golfing with my father one day, perhaps when I was in my early teens. My dad talks a good game, and so stepping up to the tee you are never short of advice to mull over - "Bend the knees", "Keep your eye on the ball", "Spread the legs". A particular favourite of his was, "Let the club do the work". Well, having become utterly frustrated at one point during a round, my dad offered me that sage advice - "Decie, just let the club do the work". I had had it up to here, so I just said, "Right, Okay", and threw my club on the ground, ordering it to "do the work". Well, it didn't. Of course it didn't. The club could do nothing without me attached to it, and yet in a sense my dad was right. The club was indeed useful; it could certainly do things; it had an important role to play. However, as my rather petulant display of frustration demonstrated, it was dependent on my empowering it, so to speak, in order to achieve its purposes.
In this rather pathetic golfing analogy, we are the clubs and Jesus is the golfer. To live in dependence on Him means that you are a club placed in His hands, and what He wants to do through you will be done. That's His promise. Conversely, if His will is not being done through you, then you may be trying to do it yourself, which is as redundant as a golf club lying on the ground.
Examining this passage just goes to show you the importance of thorough Bible reading and understanding also. Taking it at face value, I was left wondering just what exactly Jesus was doing here. Does God simply hate figs!? Learning about the culture and the context gives passages like this deeper meaning, so it's vital we try and do so whenever we're unsure about certain texts.
If you want to see pretty much the polar opposite approach applied to Scripture reading, look no further than the aforementioned Fred Phelps (no relation to Michael, though coincidentally, Michael's fathers name is also Fred).
Humorous websites aside, this got me thinking about that little passage in Scripture. If you aren't overly familiar with it, the story goes that Jesus was hungry, saw a fig tree in bloom, went up to it to eat of its fruit, but found no fruit on it. Mark tells us that it wasn't the season for fig trees. So what did Jesus do? Well, he cursed the fig tree by saying "May no one ever eat fruit of you again".
Taken at face value, I found this puzzling. If it wasn't the season for fig trees to bear fruit, then why is Jesus cursing a fig tree for not having fruit on it? That seems unreasonable and arbitrary to me. I mean what's Jesus trying to teach his disciples by doing such a seemingly whimsical thing?
Enter R.C. Sproul.
In a message of his entitled Scripture and Culture, he uses this text as an example of things that can get lost in translation based on environments, culture and geography and so forth, and as a reason for explaining why it's important for us to try and understand the culture of Jesus' time in order to better understand the meaning of certain texts.
In proposing the apparent problems of this text to a former Seminary Professor of his, Sproul received a very good answer. This Professor was an expert in the Palestinian culture and landscape and so forth, and told Sproul that while there is in fact a season for fig trees (just as there is for strawberries and so on), there is one fig tree that bears fruit out of season. It would be like finding strawberries growing in January.
This would seem to be the tree that Jesus encounters, because we are told it's in bloom or in 'full leaf', despite the fact that we are told in the next sentence that 'it was not the season for figs'. In other words, this fig tree should have figs on it. So Jesus doesn't just curse a tree for no specific reason and with no specific lesson in mind. Sproul calls what Jesus does here an 'object lesson'. (I'm not implying that Sproul coined the term 'object lesson', just in case you're wondering.)
Jesus saw a tree from a far that appeared to have life and be bearing fruit. However, on closer inspection, he found the tree to be a fraud. Its appearance was deceptive. We're not told why exactly it wasn't bearing fruit, but we are told that it was in 'full leaf', so it should have been bearing fruit. The object lesson here for us is a warning against hypocrisy.
We can all look good from a far away distance. We can all dress up our characters as well as our bodies on Sunday morning, and have the appearance of real spiritual life and growth. We can form a set of rules such as the church at Colosse did ("Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch"), and do our best to keep them in a vain attempt at holiness. These things might look good at first glance, but on closer inspection, they are hiding our real selves. The lack of a true internal spiritual reality is being covered over by external 'godliness', which God can obviously see right through, but which we as human beings find more difficult to spot unless we get closer to such a person (which is hard, because such a person usually doesn't want to get too close to anyone).
This object lesson acts as both a warning and an encouragement to me. It's a warning in the sense that if I'm relying on myself and my own external performance, then I've missed the Christian life completely. Don't get me wrong here - living the Christian life will produce obvious external behaviour, of that I am sure. But when we detach the external from the internal, we are left as this fig tree was - seemingly fruitful from a distance, but on closer examination, void of any kind of true life which produces real fruit.
The encouragement is that it's not actually up to me alone to produce fruit. It's when I am joined with Christ, when I 'abide in Him', then I will bear fruit, for without Jesus I can do nothing (John 15). This isn't to suggest some kind of lazy Christianity where we just sit back and do nothing.
I'm reminded of the time when I was out golfing with my father one day, perhaps when I was in my early teens. My dad talks a good game, and so stepping up to the tee you are never short of advice to mull over - "Bend the knees", "Keep your eye on the ball", "Spread the legs". A particular favourite of his was, "Let the club do the work". Well, having become utterly frustrated at one point during a round, my dad offered me that sage advice - "Decie, just let the club do the work". I had had it up to here, so I just said, "Right, Okay", and threw my club on the ground, ordering it to "do the work". Well, it didn't. Of course it didn't. The club could do nothing without me attached to it, and yet in a sense my dad was right. The club was indeed useful; it could certainly do things; it had an important role to play. However, as my rather petulant display of frustration demonstrated, it was dependent on my empowering it, so to speak, in order to achieve its purposes.
In this rather pathetic golfing analogy, we are the clubs and Jesus is the golfer. To live in dependence on Him means that you are a club placed in His hands, and what He wants to do through you will be done. That's His promise. Conversely, if His will is not being done through you, then you may be trying to do it yourself, which is as redundant as a golf club lying on the ground.
Examining this passage just goes to show you the importance of thorough Bible reading and understanding also. Taking it at face value, I was left wondering just what exactly Jesus was doing here. Does God simply hate figs!? Learning about the culture and the context gives passages like this deeper meaning, so it's vital we try and do so whenever we're unsure about certain texts.
If you want to see pretty much the polar opposite approach applied to Scripture reading, look no further than the aforementioned Fred Phelps (no relation to Michael, though coincidentally, Michael's fathers name is also Fred).
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