As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Luke 11:27-28

The passage above is rather baffling. Why would his woman just pop out of the crowd like this and proclaim these things? My best guess is that the culture highly valued reproduction. If that’s the case, and I don’t think it’s too far off of a speculation, then it means that the woman was really enamored with the thought of how some woman out in this world gave birth to this blessed man and how she must be a really proud mama.

Christ, though, points away from this fascination with motherhood and encourages the woman and us – his followers and disciples – to hear the word of God and keep it.

And I can’t help but to draw a connection between giving birth and raising up children, and hearing God’s voice and obeying it, (and in essence, bearing spiritual fruit and raising up spiritual children).

The thing about reproduction and raising up children though, is that it requires intimacy between a man and a woman – and intimacy requires privacy between that man and woman and it requires a cooperation. In the same way, in order to bear spiritual fruit, it requires us to have a level of intimacy and privacy with God, and it requires cooperation.

If we want to bear spiritual fruit, we must hear God’s voice, his word, and keep it and obey it. We must do it in cooperation, intimacy and privacy with God, no matter who is coming along with us or not.