Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree? - Matthew 21:18

Theology
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I don’t think marriage is morally wrong. Way back when women were still considered property that could be contractually obtained, Paul did indeed advise us to marry if we could not control our passions and said it was better to marry than burn with lust, if I am not mistaken. Acknowledging the burning that takes place. Though Peter and Paul did seem to have some sort of friction (with various views) we cannot begin to understand from our limited knowledge of their discussions and from our perspective in this moment in time.

Bravo on your successful marriage, Sir. I have known many marriages to end in divorce including good Christian classmates who were encouraged to couple up and marry in our beloved Christian churches and Christian Universities, only to nullify the marriage within a few years, then burdened with the idea that they have failed God when it was the Church that failed them by rushing them to get married before they were ready in order to avoid any hint of sexual immorality. Such is the fear of sex.

But I think I have sufficiently argued my points regarding morality, and you do me a disservice by not reading what I wrote and countering my points directly. Iinstead, you ask me if I condone immorailty while using your own marriage and calling as a rebuff and a badge of authority over myself. Perhaps I could accuse you of the same based on my standards.

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@Tillman, all you had to do was to answer my question with a “no” or “yes.” My example had nothing to do with any rebuff. You were just sharing your observations about our culture, and I wanted to let you see that we don’t always have a wide view of culture.

My experience has been that it takes real commitment to God and to each other to make a marriage last. Otherwise, ours wouldn’t have lasted through the death of our second child, my seven years of major depression, and my physical pain.

It had nothing to do with “a badge of authority” over you or anyone else. What you do in your life is your choice. I have no desire to control you. If you got that impression, I apologize. You mistake my observations somehow as control. They are not at all that.

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@Bruce_Leiter
I’ve been thinking about one statement:
“God loves when sinners turn back from their unrighteousness, and He is willing to forgive them, but He hates sin.”

This speaks volumes. We have to understand that God’s love and mercy don’t mean He tolerates sin. He hates it. Sin is rebellion against His holiness. But the beauty is this: even though He hates sin, He still gives the sinner a chance to turn back. That shows how deep His mercy really is.

But it’s a choice. A person can either reject that chance, or choose life. And life isn’t just existing, it’s to know Jesus Christ, to walk with Him daily, to stay in His Word and in communion with Him.

But here’s something that happens often. Some choose life, but their will is weak. Not because God didn’t equip them, but because they stop praying, stop reading Scripture, and slowly push God out of their daily life. Eventually, sin starts creeping back in.

And when that happens, they fall again. And not just back to the same place, but worse. The Bible says it clearly: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” (Proverbs 26:11) and “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness…” (2 Peter 2:21).
This isn’t a small matter. Returning to old ways after knowing the truth is a serious spiritual danger. That’s why Jesus said we must deny ourselves daily, pick up our cross, and follow Him.
Peace
Sam

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You’re right, @Samuel_23! However, we can be true to God with our thinking and deciding but very self-centered in our emotional life, as I was for the first half of my life. Anger and anxiety lurked in my unconscious mind when I didn’t even know they were there, resulting in seven years of major depression, from which God delivered me dramatically. (See the book What God Has Done: My True, Dramatic God-Biography [Amazon].)

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@Bruce_Leiter
I really appreciate your transparency. I absolutely agree that emotional healing and deeper transformation are vital — and God can truly restore broken places in powerful ways.

Is this your book..on Amazon..Amazing, I just searched it for myself
“author- Bruce Leiter”

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Yes, God led me to write that book after my wife of 56 years died suddenly to show the many dramatic answers to prayer in my life and ours.

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You still skipped over what I wrote. No where do I say immorality is acceptable. But I do question how we decide what morality is.

The Bible is layered with different types of truth. Instruction, parables, tests meant to guage the human heart, laws and rules given directly by God and sometimes tempered to human capacity at that time, rules given by man who had authority from God to rule as they saw fit, prophecies, and bloodlines, and so on.

The rules were written in another time and culture that do not always reflect the present well.

When we talk about sexual inmorality, what makes sex immoral?

You are basing it on a contractual system created in times when women had no authority, were considered property, and married as children. We no longer let children marry. Correct? We look back at this practice with disgust from our vantage point.

And women are no longer property. They have a choice now. They are responsible for their own lives- because the curse that subjected them to the authority of a man was broken through Christ. The old Adam is dead, we are a new creation with new standards.

The church villifies these changes, like fewer people choosing to marry. But Christ says we will be like the angels at the time of the ressurection- marrage will cease to be relevant. The wording does not imply this will occur because of the ressurection event itself but that mankind will be like the angels at the time of the ressurection. We are evolving as the ressurrection approaches.

The church judges people based on laws meant to contain the Old Adam. But that Adam is dead now. The New Adam has a new standard, which was the bases for all other laws- Love. Love is meant to be the heart of all laws. It nust shape how we treat all life. To not understand what this means is to be living a life of immorality. You must learn what love is and grow the capacity within yourself in order to be right with God, and stop leaning on your own interpretation of barbaric laws to tell you what is right. Those laws cannot save you.

Those religious folks who hold on to the old way of life who cannot embrace the three fold law are bound to the world of the Old Adam. And that world is dying. You will perish with it. You will follow in the footsteps of Lot’s wife who against instruction looked back at her old life and went with it.

For me, the three fold law is the very essense of the Holy Spirit. And morality must be based on the 3 fold law, the Love Law, as given by and demonstrated by Christ for the New Adam that was to come that would follow Him in His footsteps.

Only by removing the obstacle that blocks your perception, and understanding, will you see clearly.

We cannot continue to treat others like our enemies. Inferior, fallen villains for our narratives. We must stop using people as scape goats for all the ills of the world and treat each other with dignity and respect even if we don’t agree with each other. People are not objects, for sexual gratification or villification or fillers for our stories. They are God breathed, conscious and aware. No matter how old or what gender, or race, or category of sinner we label them as. They have lives, boundaries, feelings, and minds of their own that are not ours to control or destroy as we see fit.

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For me, sexual immorality is clearly defined as fornication and adultery—both of which I believe are grave sins. Marriage, in its true form, is a sacred and loving union. I may not be the most eloquent in these matters, but I do know that love, commitment, and faithfulness are essential. And yes, I believe that fornication and adultery go against God’s design for us.

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This is true. And I agree. As adultery has always symbolized the seperation of us from God and our persuit of that which is not God or Love. God is Love, and all descriptors of Love define God. LOVE is a living breathing conscious thing. It sees you and knows you and can call you by name. Understand?

Hear me in this. Love is what makes a marriage Sacred. And if love is not there (Then God is not there in the marriage and it is not Sacred. It is just a legal contract.) Love that is REAL is a bond that you cannot sever with a lawyer, or a knife. It is an eternal aspect. Just as the Holy Spirit is eternal. Because the Holy Spirit is Love and does not die. If you want to have eternal life, you must be bound to Love itself and it must define you just as it defines God. That is to be in relationship with God. Like a true marriage of seperate parts that become one body. A body that cannot be severed into seperate parts again without killing the whole body (all the parts that were once one), so wovem together they have become.

Abandoning others, severing ties, cutting people out of our lives, turning our backs on our parents, our siblings, our children, or our communities, or the weak, or the less fortunate, the mentally ill, or most vulnerable… Such actions are apprehensive and offensive in the face of that Spirit that binds all life together and breathes life into it.

You cannot “end” love. No divorce or instrument has the power or capacity to destroy Love because it is Eternal.

The sin in Divorce, the reaaon why it is a sin, is behind the symbolism, that what was brought together in Love has been divided again, made two opposing parts no longer in relationship. That one party has been made dead to the other. God cannot Divorce Himself. And what He binds in Love is forever.

Divorce, for this reason, is AntiChrist.

But God permits divorce. for us becauae He knows you don’t actually love each other YET. You just think you do. Mankind is still evolving, working through its salvation. Under the influence of that Holy Spirit Transformatonal power generation after generation since Christ died and arose from the dead.

God allows divorce, or keeps it in a grey area so to speak under grace, while maintaining the seriousness behind why Divorce is Sin. Again, it is about the symbolic meaning, the shadow of God’s intention, His Will for creation.

The new testament talks about not taking vows. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. But marriage itself is a vow. Think about this.

God’s plan is that we are all One, undivided. Which is why America is so glorious. One people, made of many, under God- a nation that is a shadow of the world to come. Which is why what is happening in our country right now is so important. The choices we are making now have greater stakes than we know. We are being tested to see if we can move forward or must repeat the path that came before from Christ to now. If we fail, the set back will wipe put numerous advances in order that we rediscover them again generation after generation, and be tedted again.

The body is sexual. It provokes us to persue sexual release. That release propagates all life. It is also meant for our pleasure, to enjoy life.

Did you know that we will one day evolve to live long enough that a hundred years will be conaidered mere infancy? It is in Sciripture. And if we continue to advance, we will achieve this.

The Bible says this is God’s plan for us. Just as it is God’s plan that we are all bound in marriage together, One Spirit, One Body, One Organism that cannot be seperated. What happens when the sexual inpulse continues, that we continue to grow to numbereven tthe stars in the heaven, and there is no longer a seperate entity for us to marry and become one with?

Will marriage still be relevant then? Or do you think God will make humanity sexless, withoit pleasure or the capacity of enjoyment? That the pleasure of our senses will disapate? Or the enjoyment of family interaction, physical intimacy, and such will disappear, null and void? Do you really think God plans for you to aing choir songs all day and nothing else?

No mind has seen, no ear has heard what God has in store.

Let the old dreams die, like stars that fade from view, then take this cup I offer, the dreams I dream for you.

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Yes, I agree with this, @Tillman. Your reflections on love being the true essence that binds us to God and to one another deeply resonate with me. It’s a profound reminder that love is not just a feeling or legal contract, but a living, eternal Spirit that shapes how we relate to others and to God Himself. The way you describe the sacredness of love and the seriousness of divorce as a separation of what God has joined is powerful and humbling.
But what is this debate all about?
Peace
Sam

31

Okay, @Tillman, let’s get specific and talk about a Scripture passage, which I prefer to generalizations. The way I hear you, you think that marriage as an institution is based on the old Adam of male dominance. I say that it is not so. Why? Let’s discuss Ephesians 5:22-31:

Eph 5:21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Eph 5:24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Eph 5:26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
Eph 5:27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Eph 5:29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
Eph 5:30 because we are members of his body.
Eph 5:31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

I did premarital counseling with a couple who wanted me to marry them. When I read this passage, the woman got really angry. Then, I explained its meaning based on the Bible’s own meanings. Inspired Paul doesn’t teach either ancient male dominance or modern individualism but God’s different, enduring pattern for marriage. (It endured 56 years for my late wife and me.)

“Wives, submit” to your husband as the household leader. The word for “submit” means a voluntary choice to give in to the husband’s guidance after the mutual submission through genuine communication of verse 21.

“Husbands, love your wives” means that, like Christ, you must fulfill your wives’ needs, similar to the way Jesus takes care of the church’s needs. It means self-sacrificial service, not at all bossing her around.

However, to prevent the marriage from tearing apart, God has appointed the male, for whatever reason, to make the big decisions about the direction of the marriage where the buck stops. That is God’s way that is different from both egalitarianism and domination.

That couple accepted the countercultural teachings of God’s Word, and I married them.

Most of the Bible is countercultural, when it rightly understood as God’s inspired Word.

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The debate is about the nature of immorality itself. I believe we the church have a weed of misunderstanding lurking about us that misdirects our attempts to spread the Gospel in our world, and it prevents us from inspiring real change.

Not the whole church or all Christians, mind you, but I think the church sows division rather than unification. We strive to control others rather than makig room for the Holy Spirit to move, inspire, lead

I believe that many believers do not embrace a belief that real love is unconditional. They do not believe in it’s power to save, heal, mend, restore, transform. Love does not allow one to remain lost, seperated from God. God goes looking and does not stop. And yet how many profess that God is fine with division and seperation. We must examine this individually and as a church.

I believe we are defining morality (and reacting to the world’s percieved immorality) based on the physical rather than spiritual understandings. God has been guiding and testing humanity for a long time, using rules, laws, parables, stories, drama etc. But along the way we have made some of those tools instruments and means a Sacred Cow instead of being changed and transformed by the Word behind the Story, or the Sound behind the Word, or the One Who makes the Sound… Each one is an Emmanation leading to a Greater Truth the other could only begin to reveal,: One who Concieved of the Thought, Who spoke the Sound, Who formed the Word, Who Constructed the Story, and Who brought all life into existence.

Metaphorically, we are turning a basic cup into the Holy Grail instead of drinking the living water that has been poured into the cup. The cup was only sacred because of the lips that touched it. But now we focus on the cup instead of the lips. And if iwhat we find in this life doesn’t look like a cup, it isn’t God. But God made the cup, not the other way around. God made the cup to drink from, not to worship as if it does not become an empty unclean thing if not cared for and used properly. The cup will deteriorate over time. And God creates a a New Cup to hold the living water. But if we hold on to the Old Cup, fail to see that it no longer serves us, then we do not grasp for the New One God has for us.

As I wrote, God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But His intention was never for Abraham to follow through. Rules and Commands guide us to the Sacred, but are not Sacred in and of themselves. If we hold a Law which is meant to preserve life, and we use that Law to destroy life instead, have we not failed to keep the Law even if we did what the Law suggested? The intention is everything. Both our intention for evoking the Law, and God’s intention for creating it. The Law in itself alone cannot be your guide if you can so easily misuse, mishandle it, and misunderstand it.

And yet how many are condemned in this age for immorality using old laws? There is a weed here that needs examined.

Are we correct in our assumption or have we missed something? Are we judging falsely? Or behaving poorly in response to what we find? Does how we meet the challenge of this world with that law affect our ability to do the Lord’s Work? Or do we need to find a better Way.

That is what this is about.

It is my belief the church is no longer in the fight because it has built a wall between itself and all sinners. When in reality God has already revealed through His Word that all have fallen short based on thr Law. The division, the wall, is superficial in belief alone.

And In this division I think of King Solomon who wisely determined which mother was the true mother by offering to slice the child in question into two parts. The true mother sacrificed her claim rather than her child, while the false mother was more than happy to kill a child through the divide..

The church seems more than happy to divide, damn, condemn and exile. And in this it has failed the King’s test and lost all claim of authority to destroy that child.

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Oh @Tillman it seems we may have discussed this on another thread:

I have added my views in this..:grin:
In short, I view male and female as equal in marriage and male is not the sole decision maker in any marriages and in case disputes arise we should pray, read scriptures and fast, for God will surely answer our prayers but yes, i talked about it with Johann and Bruce sir. Both of them gave a valuable insight. But if everyone had the same view, then it wouldn’t be fun, right?

Regarding my church, it doesn’t teach that marriage is a mere contract. Quite the opposite—it upholds the sacredness of unconditional love, just as you beautifully expressed.

A bit of background from my church history: there were individuals like Nestorius who tried to introduce divisive doctrines, often ignoring the wisdom of the unified Church and the councils of bishops. Why? Often out of pride. To preserve unity and doctrinal integrity, the Church took action collectively—Nestorius, for instance, was removed from his role and sent to a monastery. It wasn’t cruel, but it was necessary. Had the Church not intervened, Christianity might have fractured even further.
Peace
Sam

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We were actually talking about morality. Marriage and gender and sex are each part of the discussion, but only in part. How do we decide what morality is? What should we base morality on? And how do we reflect our morality to the world at large which does not appear to share our values?

Tough questions indeed.

Your church sounds lovely, as does your view of marriage.

Hopefully the parting of ways was mutually beneficial.

Some history about me- I left my church a number of years ago because I began to see the Nationalism movement inserting itslef into the church, corrupting it from within. Which is difficult to fully do when there are so many branches- perhaps a saving Grace of fractures and branches.

In fact, God gave me a prophetic dream way back in college before I saw the looming threat in person. My Freshman year at a Christian University, I went to a weekend spiritual retreat at a Pentecostal campsite where I had nightmares of rejection and abandonment. Things that occasionally happen to those who follow Christ

The next night when I got home God gave me a dream of a large white Spider creeping along and jumping into a pond, and a Godly man dressed in a black Sunday morning church suit like Johnny Cash wore- the man in black, the black sheep who married a devout woman and who was actually devout himself though never the picture of what the church says a good Christian outta be. That man confronted me on judging him based on his appearance and proceeded to crush that spider with a walking stick when it tried to come between us.

A charismatic Christian friend of mine actually interpreted to me the dream and explained to me that it represented a demonic destructive influence working through the church to destroy lives, creeping around and trapping people in its web.

After 9/11, I saw that Spider begin to emerge in the church and I left it. Because I did not want to be lead astray myself. And I watched as it grew in power, attacked people, all kinds of people. Sinners, races and religions. It warped perspectives, poured out delusions, so that people don’t know a lie from the truth. And the church has lost sight of Christ.

But I know that somewhere in this world there is someone, a Godly man, who will rise up to face that Spider. Its days are numbered. And revival will come. Christ will return to the church and cast that Spider out.

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It does seem harsh for Christ to just whammy a tree that was doing what trees do.

In response to your post, community is beautiful. It is important to feel like we belong.

But if the threat of questioning anything means you lose the affection of those at your side, did they ever really love you?

And while that love is beautiful in its season, if the tree one day bares no fruit to nourish you, can you give yourself permission to find another tree? Without cursing the tree that once fed you?

Because if you are able to do what those around you could not do… which is to overflow with living water… which is to produce from your heart a love that does not end… you have become a new tree that bares a far greater quality fruit- more numerous and far sweeter, than all the fruit that ever grew from that first tree you once knew… Fruit that is filled with life producing seed,. Seed that will one day leave you in its time to grow many more trees that bare fruit just as numerous amd sweet.

And though you leave that old tree behind you, you will still carry them, all the trees of that line, with you in your deepest roots, though they could go no further with you. If you can forgive what their hearts were unable to do.

The funny thing about curses, though- Did you know that when the Enchantress cursed the Prince in Beauty and the Beast, the curse began as a test of Love which the Prince failed miserably to pass? He did not know how to love. And while the curse kept him and all his people frozen away from all others in the world, a world that forgot they existed, Love drew a saving Grace to him through Belle. Who tested him and tested him until he worked through his cold heartedness, selfishness and lack until he gained the understanding that would break the curse.

He had to let the object of his pursuit go in order to see that Love comes back. Love does not abandon us to the curse but uses the curse to save us. Real Love cannot be controlled. It must be freely given. Cared for with great nurture. Grown from a seed. Allowed to become. Without force. Love nourishes and grows Love.

As for literal or not, Spirit has no physical Form. But it gives Form to all it indwells. Spirit shapes the boundaries of its domain, producing life. God is Love. Love is Spirit. Breath. Life.

Some things may be literal, or a fairy tale, a proverb or a symbolic map- But Truth is not always defined by the reality of the story but the lesson gleaned inside. Santa Clause may not be real. But the Spirit of Giving is very muxh Alive. The story imparts form to the Spirit that we cannot see with human eyes.

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I want to read every single word of every reply. I can’t thank you enough for your replies, all of you. I haven’t had access to be able to read them or reply, so please don’t misinterpret that as disinterest. I can’t tell you about how much I value them. I’m going to read through them now.

I will announce in the mean time that my baptism is next Sunday. <3

Thank you all, I will read now and reply very soon.

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I just want to apologize in advance for taking us way off the beaten path. My process can be very slip stream of thought, junping from one place to the next.

But I do hope that somewhere in this mess of words is something beneficial to your journey and wellbeing.

-T

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Praise be to God!
Welcome, dear brother @fantasticfaeryn.
I’m truly happy for you — what a beautiful journey you’re on!
Peace
Sam

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Okay, @Tillman, as you probably know, I prefer specific examples to generalizations. Take two “old laws” and tell me how they don’t apply today, and I’ll tell you how I see it. You generalize what too much about the church in general, not about specific passages of Scripture. Please be specific; it facilitates discussion much better, I think.

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Faeryn, Jesus didn’t throw a tantrum at a tree. He preached with it.

The fig tree looked alive. Full of leaves. From a distance, it promised fruit. Up close, it had nothing. That was the point.

Israel looked religious. The leaders had prayers, rules, temples, tradition. But no faith. No repentance. No justice. Just leaves.

Jesus cursed the tree to show what God does with empty religion. He’s not fooled by appearances. He wants fruit. Real obedience. Real love. Real worship.

The tree wasn’t unlucky. It was exposed. Same goes for anyone who fakes the faith.

Looks good from afar. Worthless up close.

—Sincere Seeker. Stay grounded. Stay sharp. Stay in the Word.

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