Bad Trees and Good Fruit

There are some teachings of Jesus that show up repeatedly throughout His ministry. Whenever I see this, I sit up and take notice, as it gives me the impression Jesus taught that particular idea frequently. Anything the Son of God is going to repeat over and over again is going to get my attention. The last teaching I want to touch on with the Sermon on the Mount is a teaching I feel like we don’t deal with enough. It’s a teaching that Jesus covers multiple times and in different contexts. And it’s a teaching we could find very useful in our world today — even though it will upset our common assumptions that help us feel safe.

The teaching goes like this in Matthew 7:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

The teaching is so straightforward — I am surprised (but not really) that we don’t like it more. Simply put (at the risk of being redundant): You cannot get bad fruit from a good tree; you cannot pick good fruit from a bad tree. It does not work.

And yet, we can’t seem to get our minds around this idea. Talk to anybody about “false teachers” and you’ll immediately hear about their alignment with Christian orthodoxy and “sound doctrine.” Very rarely will anyone mention the teachings of Jesus. Sound doctrine isn’t the measurement for false teachers, however; fruit is.

Jesus said so.

I don’t care how sound the doctrine is, if you have a teacher who produces (in their teaching and lifestyle) anger, division, fits of rage, debauchery, malice — you have a bad tree. You cannot get bad fruit from a good tree. Yet time and time again, our Christian subculture justifies the bad fruit with all kinds of trite explanations. Of course, I’m not talking about the occasional mistake or misstep; I’m talking about fruit — the fruit of their life.

And Jesus makes the truth go the other direction. If you have a teacher who produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, you have yourself a good tree. You cannot pick figs from thistles, nor grapes from thornbushes.

This is the part that messes us up. I have repeatedly heard Bible teachers teach that when non-Christians produce peace in their lives, it’s not really peace. Jesus blatantly disagrees. When you see peace, it comes from God. Period. Because God is at work in all people. To quote Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis, this means that whenever you find truth and good fruit, you are free to call it out for what it is, because all truth is God’s truth.

This helps us when we have those people in our lives who produce the fruit of Godliness, but don’t have their “labels” right. When you find truth, celebrate it. It’s God’s truth. And God doesn’t need your labels. Besides, trying to figure out everybody’s label is exhausting; trying to figure out what box everything belongs in will drive a person insane. And we love our boxes. We love them because we believe that it will make everything clean and easy and tidy. But life isn’t clean and tidy and labels don’t stick to people very well.

Jesus comes with some good news: If we use his measuring stick for discerning light and darkness, the discernment process gets a lot easier.

“Do people pick figs from thistles?”

Of course not. So why do we think it’s different with people? When you see God at work, then God is at work. Why would we be surprised by this? Isn’t God always at work? We spend far too much time trying to figure out the appropriate designation for things, rather than discerning light from darkness. In every encounter, in every situation, in every church event, in every teaching — what is the fruit here? Goodness? Love? Self-control? Anger? Division?

“By their fruit you will know them.”

It will blow up our world of labels and assumptions. It will disrupt our false sense of tidiness. And it will surprise us to find where God shows up (and even where He isn’t at times).

But God’s been showing up in weird places since the creation of the world. It almost seems like a hobby of His.