Article October 31, 2011 Issue

‘I will make you fruitful’

By Andrew Wilson

With the arrival of autumn in England, I’ve felt inspired to reread Keats’s ode “To Autumn,” which he described as “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” I’ve been delighted to find that the poem resonates with a greater understanding I’ve been gaining of the Bible’s assurances that God has a spiritually enriching plan for all His children. In the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis, God promised infinite fruitfulness that would extend to every facet of our lives, including the storehouse of blessings set out in the book of Deuteronomy for those who “hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord” (see 28:1–12).

In the Old Testament there are many other passages confirming that being fruitful is God’s eternal and daily plan for us—among them, “I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you” (Lev. 26:9). 

Similar analogies are freely used in the New Testament, where Jesus, for example, shared the parable of the sower and the seed. He promised that we would bear fruit according to the receptivity or preparedness of our thinking (or mental groundwork, if you like), and that if God’s word fell into “good ground” we would bear fruit “some an hundedfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold” (see Matt. 13:3–43). And speaking of the “true vine” and the role of his Father as husbandman, Jesus said, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit” (John 15:8).

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