Guidance for the Journey

We love to hear stories of the solo adventurer. Whether it’s free climbing 3,000 feet of solid granite or sailing around the world or skiing across Antarctica, these stories show us the extraordinary focus, grit, and determination of the human spirit. But they can also give us the wrong impression if we think the Christian life is intended to be a solo adventure. We are meant to walk this life together, to help others and be helped by others along the way. Let’s get some guidance for the journey with some help from the Preacher’s Commentary notes on Galatians 6:1–6.

Bearing and Sharing Burdens

The Christian walk is a shared journey. We do not walk alone; others walk with us. In this section Paul is giving us some guidance for our journey together. We will come back to verse 1, but let’s begin with verse 2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

1. Paul is talking about interrelatedness and interdependence, a principle that is laced throughout Paul’s epistles. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26, RSV). “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak” (Rom. 15:1, RSV). The new life into which we have been born through Christ is a shared life.

• The Greek word used to describe the shared life of the people of God was koinonia. Our best word for it in English is “fellowship,” but this is far too limited to encompass the meaning of the Greek. Koinonia means sharing, all kinds of sharing: sharing in friendship (Acts 2:42), being partners in the gospel (Phil. 1:5), sharing material possessions (2 Cor. 8:4), having fellowship in Christ (1 Cor. 1:9), and sharing life together in the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). Above all, koinonia is fellowship with God. “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship” (koinonia, 1 John 1:3)—that life we share with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
• In koinonia we are bound to each other, to Christ, and to God. Our life is a shared life, we bear one another’s burdens.

2. Crucial to living this shared life is learning to listen. Is there anything that enhances our feelings of worth more than being listened to? When you listen to me you say to me, “I value you. You are important. I will hear and receive what you say.”

• When I really listen to a person—listen with ears and a heart that hears—it becomes revelation, and the Spirit comes alive in the relationship. Certainly that is the primary (though perhaps not the only) mode and place of revelation of Spirit—in relationship. When I listen, the gap between me and the person to whom I listen is bridged. A sensitivity comes that is not my own. I feel the pain, the frustrations, the anguish—sometimes feeling these and identifying a problem even when the other is not actually sharing the problem or these feelings explicitly. I listen in love and the sharing moves to the deep and intimate levels where the person and I really live. The Spirit opens doors and hearts and effects change.
• The miraculous thing is that I do not have to have an answer for the person with whom I am sharing. In my listening I become the answer, and if something specific is needed, the Spirit reveals the “answer” in the listening relationship.

3. Another essential for the shared life of the people of God is that persons must be available to each other—available in love. This is what Paul is talking about: “Bear one another’s burdens.”

The marvelous aspect of this principle of availability is that we have to bring to a relationship only ourselves. It doesn’t require particular skills and training. We simply have to be open and honest, willing to listen and share ourselves. Above all, we have to love the person, and that completes the principle: we are to be available in love!

4. Self-understanding, self-appreciation and self-affirmation mark the integrity of the people of God. “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another” (Gal. 6:3–4).

Unfortunately, the message that many of us have heard as the “Christian” message gives us little encouragement for self-appreciation. The message has come through as self-depreciation. To be sure, self-denial is at the heart of the gospel, but self-denial is not to be seen as self-depreciation or any form of devaluating of the self.

Akin to misunderstanding this dimension of the gospel is a limited grasp of true humility. Christian humility is not a groveling “doormat” stance. Unfortunately, we have thought of humility only as a recognition and affirmation of weakness and limitation. Not so. The truly humble know who they are; they know their strength as well as their weakness.

So Paul does not stop by admonishing us not to deceive ourselves by thinking we are something which we are not. He goes on to urge us to examine ourselves so that we will rejoice in ourselves. We need to learn to affirm strength. Christian character is not to be thought of in terms of weakness, of self-loathing, and/or anemic living. To be forgiven and accepted by God, to realize that God knows us thoroughly and loves us thoroughly, to be called and commissioned, to be made a son and an heir is to be made a new person in Christ, to be given a vocation. All of that is accompanied by strength. Thus “to be Christian is to be strong in God, under God, and with God.”

5. There are some burdens only I can bear.

Having called for the bearing of one another’s burdens, Paul seems to contradict himself. For each one shall bear his own load (v. 5). The KJV translates the nouns in verses 2 and 5 the same, “burden.” The RSV and the NKJV translate verse 5 “load” rather than burden. In Greek one word is baros (burden), the other phortion (load). The difference is only slight. The latter, “load,” is the word used for a soldier’s pack. The meaning is that there are some duties and tasks which we alone can perform, for which we alone must accept responsibility. Others may support us through their prayers and encouragement, through “being with us,” but the load is ours to bear.

In this setting the load each of us must bear on our own is the task of self-examination and self-correction. The standard of measurement for our lives is known only by us, for that standard is the calling of Christ to us, the apostolic action He requests of us. Therefore we can never measure ourselves against other Christians, much less non-Christians who may excuse themselves by accusing us of hypocrisy. Paul talked about this in another setting. “But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12). We look at ourselves in relation to our gifts and calling, and bear the load of judgment in terms of our being and doing as a person in Christ.

6. The laborer is worthy of his hire. “Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches” (Gal. 6:6). Paul is not talking only of material things. Prayer, encouragement, emotional support, the sharing of spiritual gifts—all are essential. Yet Paul is talking about material things.

To avoid the charge of preaching for money, for there were many peddling the gospel for a price, Paul continued to work at his trade. He knew, however, that this should not be the general practice. The Christian church needed teachers, persons in residence locally who were trusted, who could stay at the task, and who could give the time necessary for teaching. These persons were to be supported materially as well as otherwise.

7. The ministry of spiritual support, correction, guidance, and restoration.

At the heart of the shared life of the people of God is the ministry of spiritual support, guidance and restoration. This is what Paul is talking about in Galatians 6:1: “Brethren, if a man is over-taken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”

As Christians we are not incapable of sinning. While we do not live in the “domain of sin,” we do sin. We are often “overtaken in trespasses.” The word for “trespass” is paraptoma and means literally “false step.” It could mean a slip that comes in walking on an icy or otherwise dangerous path. Paul is giving us some clear signals:

(1) We are all vulnerable. Any of us may slip. The church should never take the stance of being a “pure” people, a people without sin. We should be careful about spiritual overconfidence. Just when we think we are solidly in the saddle, with firm clutch on the reigns, the wild horse of the flesh may take a sudden turn or make a dramatic buck sending us sprawling to the ground. Or, like Peter, we may be betrayed by overconfidence and end up denying Christ.

Confusion plagues us. It is not always easy to decide what is right. So Paul says, be careful how you think of others’ sins; consider yourself, “lest you also be tempted.”

(2) Within the shared life of the people of God we are to judge each other, but this judgment is assessment in love, not condemnation. When we are involved with each other, knowing the love we share and our mutual commitment to each other’s growth, we can speak the truth in love, we can assist each other in recognizing and acknowledging faults and weaknesses. Without this kind of involvement with and mutual concern for each other we remain locked in our own worlds and there is little chance for change and growth.

(3) Paul defines the kind of mutual support and correction we should provide for each other: “restore him in the spirit of gentle-ness.” Remember, gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit. Our supporting, correcting, guiding, and restoring activity is in the Spirit of Christ, who is gentle and calls us to gentleness. We handle each person with the kind of gentle care with which we would handle a piece of precious, fragile crystal. We seek to be sensitive to the brittleness of persons, to their high emotional pain threshold. We are firm, seeking never to fall in the ditch ourselves in order to help the sinner; but we are gentle recognizing that the stakes are high—in fact, eternal. We don’t burst down doors to make our case. We respect privacy and dignity and self-esteem. We know that what is worthwhile is not accomplished by mere denunciation and rebuke. Our duty is not to condemn but to restore.

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