On Bearing Fruit

I've started reading Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, and am thoroughly enjoying it thus far. They draw some really interesting (and frightening) parallels between the Roman empire into which Paul was speaking and the current empire of the West (led by the US).

One of the things I found particularly interesting in the first few chapters was a discussion on the references to bearing fruit in Colossians 1:1-10. First, they bring out the riches of the reference in light of Israel's history:

When Paul says that the gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world and that knowledge of God in Christ results in a life worthy of the Lord, bearing fruit in all kinds of good works, his language echoes the stories of Jesus, the prophets' promises of restored fruitfulness, the Torah's connection of fruitfulness to justice and obedience, and the very foundational calling for humanity to bear fruit and multiply... When he uses a metaphor as seemingly common as 'bearing fruit', the whole scriptural tradition of Israel is informing its meaning. (p. 75)

It is also fascinating to discover the counter-cultural meaning inherent in the metaphor:

The Colossian community was surrounded by a claim of fruitfulness and fertility, a claim rooted in the oppressive military might of the empire, in the controlling social structures of the empire, and in evocative images of lush fertility found on the buildings, statues and household items that shaped their visual imagination. It was a claim that incessantly called everyone to acknowledge that Rome was the source of fruitful abundance. (p, 72)

So into this cultural climate a gospel (the word for gospel, euangelion, "is the very same term that the empire reserved for announcements of military success and pronouncements from the emperor" (75) and so already carried a political overtone) was being proclaimed that directly countered the empire. Who do we believe is the source of our fruitfulness? Christ or Caesar?

And what kind of fruitfulness are we talking about? Paul tells the Colossians that the gospel of Jesus bears a fruit in their lives that is fundamentally different from the fruit of the empire. The fruit of this gospel is rooted not in military might and economic oppression but in the practice of justices and sacrificial faithfulness. This is a gospel that bears fruit in 'every good work' of forgiving generosity and therefore undermines the hoarding abundance of the empire. (p. 75)