skills of viticulture. Vine dressers both trim branches so that they will produce more fruit and cut away dead branches that have no life in them. In each case the assumption is that fruit-bearing is the test of life-giving attachment to the vine. The picture of attachment to Jesus as a branch is attached to a vine is an apt description of the interior spiritual life Jesus has described since chapter 14. Here, however, the key word is “remaining” or “abiding” (Gk. meno), which is used throughout
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