Grapevine and Branches 🍇🍇🍇

Image Credit

---

Abide

The Bible tells us much about grapevines. Jesus used the example of fruit-bearing vines to describe how we are to abide in Him.

"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me."John 15:4

Grapevines are perennials. They die back and regrow each year and they have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years. They will also grow and flourish into very bushy, leafy plants if they are not pruned.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." John 15:1

---

Growing

The first year of growth for a grapevine builds up nutrient stores. Sort of like when we were children and our parents told us to eat our broccoli so we will grow up big and strong. Any flower clusters that grow during the first year are pruned back so that the root system of the plant will grow strong and help to establish the vine.

Pruning also helps to ensure that the grapes produced will be high quality.

As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:" 1 Peter 2:2

Like a young grapevine, little children must also grow. The bible gives several examples of new believers going from the milk of the word to the meat of the word. With a child, meat cannot be eaten until the child grows to a certain age and milk nourishes the child until such time. With early grapevines, the roots are nourished by cutting back the first flowing bundles and some of the branches, along with leaves.

"I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."
1 Corinthians 3:2

The Apostle Paul, while speaking to the Corinths, told them that they still had need of milk. He even spoke of their actions as proof of them still having need of milk.

"For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?"1 Corinthians 3:3

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Colossians 2:6-7

"He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." 1 John 2:6

The only way to "walk, even as He walked," is by abiding in Him and maturing in Him.

Then highest quality fruit will be produced that can be pressed to produce wine, and grapes seeds can be used to plant new crops. (My next article will focus on this subject alone.)

"Therefore thou shalt say unto them, When ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshingfloor, and as the increase of the winepress."Numbers 18:30

"And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred." Mark 4:8

Reference for Cycle of Grapevines:

http://winefolly.com/review/lifecycle-of-a-wine-grapevine/

August 26 - 2017