By Dave Benner
When I was in my 20’s, I worked in an orchard. One job I thoroughly enjoyed was grafting. We were grafting over rabbit damage on young apple trees. Rabbits will girdle trees in winter when other food is scarce. Our grafts enabled the tree to live and produce fruit.
Grafting requires preparing the graft (called a scion) as well as the host or root stock. Care must be taken to match the cambium layers together. This allows the movement of nutrients to the graft. You must make a clean cut and carefully insert the graft.
Later, I was surprised to learn that grafting is mentioned in the Bible. In Romans 11, Paul says that God grafted the Gentiles into the cultivated olive tree that represents God’s people. Evidently, grafting was a well-known practice or Paul would not have used it in this example.
In James 1:21, James writes, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (KJV). Most versions use the term implanted as a synonym for engrafted.
Let’s consider the engrafting process in this illustration. First, God’s word is perfect. “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching … so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (Romans 4:1-5). No preparation is necessary for the scion that is God’s word.
The host in this illustration is our heart and preparation is very necessary for the graft to grow. We prepare our hearts by believing that God’s word is true. We must also determine in our hearts that we will be obedient to His word. We must decide that ALL of God’s word is true, not just what we pick and choose.
Just as our grafting in the orchard led to apple trees bearing fruit, the engrafted word in our hearts should lead to bearing fruit for God.