Monthly Archives: January 2013

Reformation Thought: Grafting

I don’t consider myself much of a farmer. Yes, we raise tilapia, have several beehives and half a dozen milk goats. We have laying hens, a greenhouse and raised garden beds. We even have eight or nine fruit trees and a dozen or more fruiting vines. Still, I only reluctantly claim any ability to grow anything. The real reason is that I know I do not have the proverbial ‘green thumb.’ Just check the spot where I have managed to kill two beautiful apricot trees. It stands as a testament to the many other plants that I have tortured or terminated in any number of dumb ways.

Maybe that is why I consider grafting to be one of the so called ‘holy grails’ of farming. There seems a certain mystery to it, but I aim to learn more about it this year. Someone recently told me of an article about how to graft tomato plants for increased yield and multiple varieties on a single vine. Sounds like a new way to destroy formerly green plants that I’m itching to try. But, I digress.

Grafting is indeed a tricky piece of husbandry whereby a branch or bud from one plant or tree can be trimmed and inserted into a notch in a strong(er) plant for the benefit of nourishment from the root stock. The cutting by itself, in most cases, will die. However, if someone who knows what they are doing can trim it up and properly graft it into a choice stock/stump, it will bear much fruit.

Paul rightly uses the grafting metaphor in Romans 11:17-24 when he explains how Gentiles ‘become partakers of the rich root of the olive tree.’ At least six times in those eight verses he uses the words graft and grafting. Continue reading →