Joy and the Fruit of the Spirit

Scripture — Galatians 5:22-23 (NRSV)

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Devotion

In yesterday’s Life for Leaders devotion, we saw a close connection between joy and the Holy Spirit. In Romans 14:17, the kingdom of God is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Then, in Romans 15:13, Paul prays, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Joy, therefore, is not merely a human emotion or experience. Joy isn’t something we create on our own. True joy comes from God through the Spirit who lives within us because of Jesus Christ.

The fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians reveals more about the relationship between the Spirit and joy. Paul gets into this topic at first by confronting the Galatians for their selfish pursuit of “the desires of the flesh” (5:16). These desires move us to engage in “the works of the flesh,” which include: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (5:19-21). If we “live by the Spirit,” however, we will be empowered not to “gratify the desires of the flesh” (5:16).

But the Holy Spirit at work within us does much more than help us avoid a wide range of fleshly works. The Spirit also causes a certain kind of “fruit” to grow within us and in our behavior. What is this fruit? “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (5:22-23).

The way Paul writes here suggests that there is one, multifaceted fruit of the Spirit, rather than lots of distinct fruits. This makes sense when you consider the interconnectedness of the various flavors of spiritual fruit. For example, love, the first of these flavors, is expressed through other flavors, such as patience, kindness, generosity, and gentleness. Joy can also lead to acts of kindness and generosity. Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit underscores what we saw yesterday in Romans 14 and 15. Joy comes from God through the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. When we experience joy, this is evidence of the Spirit at work within us.

The fact that joy grows in us through the Spirit also expands our understanding of joy. We often use “joy” to describe a certain kind of positive emotion, something that responds to some good thing and that is more enduring than feelings of momentary happiness. But joy as a flavor of the fruit of the Spirit seems to be something more than this. Thus, my Fuller Seminary colleagues Pamela Ebystyne King and Frederic Defoy write in “Joy as a Virtue”:

We suggest that joy is best conceptualized as a virtue, a psychological habit, comprised of characteristic adaptations and given meaning by transcendent narrative identity. Thus joy involves knowing, feeling, and enacting what matters most (p. 308).

These days, we don’t hear much about virtue. We may not even know what this word means. (According to Google’s Ngram Viewer, the use of “virtue” has plummeted since 2000, though with a slight uptake in the last 20 years.) Drawing from both psychological and philosophical insights, King and Defoy explain what they mean by virtue in this way:

Virtues are enduring but malleable psychological capacities that enable people to sustain enacting what is morally good. They are formed by patterns of psychological processes and are given meaning by belief systems (p. 312).

The writers refer to classical philosophy, which defines virtues as “habits across time through intentional practices that enable individuals to enact what is morally good within the context in which they live” (p. 313).

Galatians 5 reveals that the virtues, including joy, are formed in us, not only “by patterns of psychological processes” but also by the influence of the Holy Spirit. Joy, according to King and Defoy, “may be understood as an enduring quality or capacity that emerges from living in Christ and that is produced by the Holy Spirit” (p. 312). Joy, therefore, isn’t only an emotion, but rather a virtue, psychological habit, or capacity that results from the Spirit’s work in us. As the Holy Spirit shapes our minds and hearts, we will be inclined toward joy, not just in response to good things, but in all of life.

Joy, as one flavor of the fruit of the Spirit, isn’t only experienced through positive emotions that respond to positive and important events. Joy is also the inner ability to see and experience the goodness of life. Joyful people don’t ignore suffering or evil. But they don’t focus only on the suffering and evil in life. Through the Spirit, they can pay attention to the goodness that matters most of all. They can delight in God’s presence. They can rejoice in God’s kingdom as it is now, while also feeling joy in their confident hope of God’s future kingdom.

As I reflect upon what I’ve written here, I find myself asking the Lord for this kind of joy. Yes, I certainly want joyful feelings. But I also want the Spirit to shape my soul for joyfulness. I want to learn to pay attention more to God’s good gifts. I want to be free from “works of the flesh” that diminish my joy: anxiety, selfishness, negativity, and complaining. I am asking God to enable the fruit of the Spirit, including joy, to flourish in my heart, mind, relationships, and actions. Perhaps you’d like to join me in this prayer!

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project’s online commentary. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Life in the Spirit (Galatians 5:13–23).