On a good and fruitful tree…
– God will prune fruit-laden branches to improve the quality of fruit on remaining branches.
(John 15:2)
On a tree gone bad…
– In a seed with all it needed was somehow influenced to produce bad fruit…
– Bad soil? Lack of water? Lack of nutrient? Some form of ingested poison? Lack of Light? Lack of shelter as a sapling? Foxes? Fruit fly?
All or any…
(and all spiritual metaphors)…
but if a whole tree is bad and the fruit is bad, the Gardener chops it down and out and burns the stump.
(Matthew 7:17-20)
On a tree with no fruit. After years of watchful waiting…
The ‘waiters’ for the fruit may tell the gardener to be rid of it – and the Gardener may say…
– “Hold up. Let me prune it and dig around it and whack some manure in there and give it the water and shelter it needs and have another look next fruit season and see. If there’s good fruit then, hey! Win win! If there’s not, so be it.”
(Luke 11:6-9)
And if THEN there’s fruit and if it’s GOOD then the firstfruits belong to the Lord and the next season it is ready to be partaken.
(Leviticus 19:23. The heart not the law – as a spiritual dynamic)
Will the new fruit be an outflow and an offering?
– for that is part of the evidence.
Orcharding is slow business but The Gardener is patient and understands the seasons, the seed, the elements of Life – and the times.