The question of the meaning of fruitful and unfruitful is also important. Today it is often understood primarily as how many “testimonies” can be made and how many commitment cards can be signed. For some who eschew evangelism it amounts to how consistent is one’s life in caring for others. But these alternatives would have been completely foreign to Jesus, who taught and healed and who forgave sins and fed the multitude.208 They would also have been an unreal dichotomy for John, who called readers