Several years ago I heard someone say that the singular fruit of Spirit is love. The rest of the list–joy, peace, patience, benevolence/kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control–all describe love. Today, on his blog, Nick Norelli asked why the “fruit”(καρπὸς)was singular. This reminded me of what I had previously heard.

Is it grammatically possible for the rest of the list to modify love? All the words are in the nominative allowing them to stand in apposition to the fruit. Is it possible though that the first word of the list, love, is alone in apposition to fruit and then the rest of the words are somehow in apposition to love only? This would translate something like, “And the fruit of the Spirit is love which is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control, against such a thing there is no law.”