Tree of Hippocrates

Fruit is produced only when the tree is nourished.

In the Greek Islands, one can seek out the home of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine. In the area, one can also find an olive tree, supposedly dating from his time. If this is so, this tree would then be some 2,400 years old. The trunk of this tree is very large but completely hollow. The tree is little more than thick bark. There are a few long, straggling branches, but they are supported by sturdy wooden poles every few feet. The tree has an occasional leaf here and there and might produce a few olives each year.

In the fields around, surrounding the olive tree, are olive groves. The strong, healthy, young trees with narrow trunks are covered with a thick canopy of leaves, under which masses of olives can be found each year. The tree of Hippocrates can still be called an olive by nature, in that it still shows the essential unique characteristics, but it has long since ceased to fulfill an olive tree’s function. Tourists file up to inspect this ancient relic, having some link to a dim history, but the job of the olive tree passed long ago to many successions of replanted trees.

What was different between the old olive tree and the new ones? They both looked like olive trees on the outside and were shaped the same. They both had roots, a trunk, and limbs. But at harvest, the young trees bore many olives while the old tree was lucky to produce a couple of olives a year.

In many ways this analogy can be applied to the Christian’s life. We can look good on the outside, but it is the inside that matters. And eventually, the inside will be shown through the fruit we produce.

Do you sometimes wonder why you are not seeing people saved or lives changed? You could be doing all the right things and obeying God’s commands but if your heart is not clean of sin, your efforts are in vain.

God reminds us in Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart.” While we should look and act like Christians, our actions should come from a heart that loves God and seeks to honor Him. A tree cannot produce fruit if there are toxins inside of it. In order for it to produce fruit, it must be nourished. Even so, we cannot produce fruit for the Lord if we have toxic sin inside of us. We must be nourished by the Word of God.

Source: DITW, January 14, 2009