{"id":840,"date":"2023-04-07T12:26:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T19:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/?p=840"},"modified":"2023-10-17T21:21:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T04:21:55","slug":"biblically-what-is-the-difference-between-fruit-and-works-in-the-new-testament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/07\/biblically-what-is-the-difference-between-fruit-and-works-in-the-new-testament\/","title":{"rendered":"Biblically, what is the difference between &#8220;fruit&#8221; and &#8220;works&#8221; in the New Testament?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In the New Testament, &#8220;bearing fruit&#8221; and &#8220;works&#8221; are two concepts that are closely related, but they have slightly different meanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Bearing fruit&#8221; is a metaphor used by Jesus and other New Testament writers to refer to the evidence of a person&#8217;s spiritual life. When a person is &#8220;bearing fruit,&#8221; it means that their life is producing evidence of their relationship with God, such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). The idea of bearing fruit is closely associated with the idea of being connected to Jesus, who is the true vine (John 15:1-8). When we are connected to him, we are able to bear fruit, but apart from him, we can do nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Works,&#8221; on the other hand, refers to the actions that a person takes as a result of their faith. Works can include things like helping the poor, visiting the sick, sharing the gospel, and living a moral life. Works are important because they demonstrate the reality of a person&#8217;s faith (James 2:14-26). However, it is important to note that works alone are not enough to save a person. Salvation is a free gift from God, and it is received by faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Works are the evidence of faith, but they do not earn salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In summary, &#8220;bearing fruit&#8221; and &#8220;works&#8221; are two related concepts in the New Testament, but they have slightly different meanings. Bearing fruit refers to the evidence of a person&#8217;s spiritual life, while works refer to the actions that a person takes as a result of their faith. Both are important, but works alone are not enough to save a person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the New Testament, &#8220;bearing fruit&#8221; and &#8220;works&#8221; are two concepts that are closely related, but they have slightly different meanings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/07\/biblically-what-is-the-difference-between-fruit-and-works-in-the-new-testament\/\">&sim;&nbsp;Continue Reading&nbsp;&sim;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[174,32],"tags":[175,177,176],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pexels-photo-635705.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1218&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5OfD9-dy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions\/842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonflaherty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}