Issue 12 Interactive PreachingBlog | Soul Care for leaders – The tree and its fruit
Soul Care for leaders – The tree and its fruit
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 23.09.17
‘We are perfectly designed to get the results we see today,’ wrote Dallas Willard, one of the most original Christian thinkers in the last 50 years. Want a different outcome, he asked? Then look at how we are constructed on the inside. This applies as much to the individual follower of Christ as it does to the worldwide church. Like any failing company or government, if there are cracks on the exterior then it’s likely that the problem is on the interior.
Both Jesus and Paul would agree. For Jesus the invitation was to first clean the inside of the cup, and then the outside would largely take care of itself. A good tree simply cannot bear bad fruit, he said. It’s a horticultural impossibility. The agony of Paul was for Christ to be formed within us. Can you imagine him being consumed, as in the pain of childbirth, by the formation of the congregations he loved so much? I’ve not yet seen a painting that depicts this, but if you know better then please let me know.
