If we want to bear good fruit in our lives, we must have strong roots. Good fruit must lead to love. As the Rev. Dr. Pam King offers in this episode, “Root into love so that you can live out love.”

Speaking on Jesus’s parable of the Tree and Its Fruits in Luke 6, she draws on theological and psychological resources to reflect on the role of active and intentional love in a thriving life.

Luke 6:43-45: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit.  Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush.  The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good. And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil,  for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”

Show Notes

• Luke 6:43-45: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good. And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
• “I believe this scripture … redefines reality and redefines fruit.”
• True love in *The Princess Bride — “Wuv. Twoo Wuv.”
• “True love is the greatest thing in the world.”
• “Root into love so that you can live out love.”
• What is thriving? What New Testament parables of Jesus express thriving?
• Redefining “Good”
• What is good?
• “Good” is a four-letter word
• There’s always a right answer in Sunday School: “Jesus”
• Defining the Relationship? Or Define the Reality?
• A reordering of values
• “… a radical reordering of values and a re sanctification of sanctioned behaviors. He describes the kind of conduct that is appropriate for this kingdom that he will be leading. It is love your enemies, do good out of love. Give generously out of love. Lend without expectation. Love your neighbor.”
• Fruit is a symbol of love
• Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz, “The Home of God”—what is to come is coming now. “Inbreaking”
• Flux in congregational or community life
• The Reciprocating Self
• Conformity is not synonymous with uniformity
• “We are each invited to bear fruit out of our own giftedness.”
• “Bear fruit as yourself.”
• “Pam, you’re a good Pam.”
• “We bear fruit by living out God's love. in this world as ourselves.”
• Tree imagery in the Bible
• “A tree firmly planted, or some versions rooted, by streams of water, that does not get blown when the winds come by.”
• What kind of tree are you?
• How do you root into God’s love?
• Eli Finkel and third-person perspective taking
• “When people take a benevolent third person view in the Christian worldview, God's perspective, and they actually write those things about a person, the conflict is still there, but they're able to interact and care for that person more effectively and see that person more wholly.”
• “80 percent of Americans young people are lonely. We are in a cultural mode of despair in many ways. We are losing our relational capacity.”

About the Thrive Center

• Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
• Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
• Follow us on X @thrivecenter
• Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

• Host: Pam King
• Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
• Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
• Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
• Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.