Go Figure

My neighbors have a fig tree drooping with ripening fruit. We’re planning a fig feast next week. Figs on pizza. Figs and cream. Figs with goat cheese. Figs!

Yesterday I watched Chimpanzees the movie with my kids and, surprise, chimps eat figs—figs in the middle of the jungle. The narrator said figs are some of the hardiest fruits in the world, that they’ve grown for thousands of years, that chimps can always depend on the figs, even when nothing else grows.

Helped me understand Jesus cursing the fig tree with no fruit. After all, the fig tree is not a delicate plant. The fig tree is like that Dugger mom, made to bear.

When Jesus talks about His followers bearing spiritual fruit, he’s likely looking at a fig tree.

Archeologists believe figs to be the very first agricultural crop—before wheat or barley. People have been eating figs for longer, likely much longer, than they’ve baked bread.

Most scholars believe Adam and Eve covered themselves in fig leaves after the fall. That leads many to assume the forbidden fruit was, drum roll please, a fig.

Who knew?