“By Their Fruits” — Then Jesus Warned That Your Words Will Judge You

“By Their Fruits” — Then Jesus Warned That Your Words Will Judge You In Matthew 7, Jesus gives the famous test: "Ye shall know them by their fruits." Five chapters later, he says: "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." So which is it? When Jesus said "by their fruits," did he mean what people do, or what people say? In this video we read both chapters verse by verse. We start with the false prophets in sheep's clothing, Zechariah's warning about prophets who "wear a rough garment to deceive," and the people who say "Lord, Lord" and are still turned away, where Ellicott's Commentary admits: "The question, What are the fruits? is not directly answered." Then we go to Matthew 12, where one miracle produces two very different sentences: the crowd asks "Is not this the son of David?" and the Pharisees answer with Beelzebub. We look at the Greek behind the English: the "abundance" of the heart, the same word used for the bread left over in Mark 8:8; the "treasure," a deposit; the verb behind "bringeth forth," the same one used for casting out devils a few verses earlier; the "idle" word, a word with no work; and the "corrupt" tree, a word that means rotten, used for the bad fish in Matthew 13 and for "corrupt communication" in Ephesians 4:29. We read how Ellicott, Barnes, Gill, Poole, Meyer, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, the Pulpit Commentary, the Cambridge Bible and John Chrysostom read the idle word, and where they disagree. We follow the fruit of the mouth through Proverbs, Isaiah, Hosea and Hebrews; John the Baptist's "O generation of vipers"; the fig tree that got one more year in Luke 13; the fig tree with nothing but leaves in Mark 11, which Matthew Henry reads as a picture of "hypocrites in general"; Plato's garden of Adonis; James and the tongue; and the Didache, an early Christian manual, which says that every prophet who teaches the truth, "if he do not what he teaches, is a false prophet." We end in the high priest's courtyard, where Peter hears "thy speech bewrayeth thee," and by the Sea of Galilee, where Peter gets three more answers. We separate what the text says from how it has been interpreted. Subscribe to the channel for more of the verses you already know, explained from the text itself, with the sources below. Turn on notifications so you don't miss the next one. And tell us in the comments: which line will stay with you longer, "by their fruits," or "by thy words"? Main sources The Holy Bible, King James Version, with its marginal notes: Proverbs 12:14; 13:2; 18:20-21; Isaiah 57:19; Hosea 14:2; Zechariah 13:4; Matthew 3:7-10; 7:15-23; 10:32; 12:22-37; 13:48; 25:45; 26:69-75; Mark 8:8; 11:12-21; 14:70; Luke 3:10-14; 6:43-49; 13:6-9; John 21:15-17; Ephesians 4:29; Hebrews 13:15; James 3; 2 Peter 1:8. The Greek New Testament (Textus Receptus) and the Greek Septuagint (Hosea 14). Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon, via Bible Hub (argos, sapros, perisseuma, thesauros). Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers; Barnes' Notes on the Bible; Benson Commentary; John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible; Matthew Poole's Commentary; Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary; Meyer's NT Commentary; The Pulpit Commentary; Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary. John Chrysostom, Homily 42 on the Gospel of Matthew (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 10; translated by George Prevost, revised by M. B. Riddle). The Didache, chapter 11 (translated by M. B. Riddle, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7). Plato, Phaedrus (translated by Benjamin Jowett). Background (the date of the Didache): Wikipedia. Visual credits Archive photos (Wikimedia Commons): "Date palm tree laden with clusters of its fruit" — Godwin Borg, CC BY-SA 4.0 "Citrus Trees heavily laden with ripe fruit" — Godwin Borg, CC BY-SA 4.0 "119540 the biblical tel dan PikiWiki Israel" — שלמה רודד, CC BY 2.5 Stock photos and footage: Pexels and Pixabay. The narration voice and most of the images are AI-generated. AI images are conceptual reconstructions, not historical records. Thumbnail: AI-generated illustration. #Bible #Jesus #ByTheirFruits #SermonOnTheMount #Matthew12 #BibleStudy #WhatTheBibleReallyMeans