Hey, everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast, and we're working through the book of Galatians. We're in Galatians chapter 5, where we're into this contrasting pair of lists. One is representative of the outgrowth, the actions, indicative of the stuff that points to the things of the flesh. The flesh is a complex idea,

ranging all the way from just our own mortality to basic human desires, to our own human

effort to try to achieve things only God can achieve, all the way to our pernicious desires

that are compromised. That's a list that contrasts the acts of the flesh

with another list that is the fruit of the spirit. And in that first list, like we talked about

yesterday, these things are described as acts, actions. And in the second list, the good list,

we don't hear about a list of acts, we hear about a list of fruits.

Now, again, we touched on this a decent amount yesterday, so I'm not going to linger a bunch here.

We're going to get to the first of the fruit of the spirit.

But I do think that distinction is really important, especially in the context of Galatians, where Paul is talking so much about the fruitlessness of human effort,

especially as it pertains to trying to adhere to all of the Old Testament law, to use the flesh,

to defeat the flesh is futility in the mind of Paul. It's futility in the stuff that Paul even points to from the law,

the very law that some people were trying to keep. The flesh isn't going to beat the flesh.

The spirit is what gives us new life. The spirit is what has us born anew. The spirit is God's

presence in our life. So Paul doesn't use the same word to describe the second list, the very bad stuff,

acts, human effort, flesh.

The second list, the very good stuff, fruit.

It grows.

Who is doing the gardening here?

Well, we happen to know what Paul thinks about that because back over here in 1st Corinthians

1, Paul is writing to a church that was something of a dumpster fire at times.

I find it very entertaining to go around and look at all the different places that were difficult on Paul's journeys, and they all had dockside bars.

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