Scripture Reference: Galatians 6:1-10

Carrying Burdens (verse 2). Paul turns again to the corporate responsibility of all Spirit-led Christians: Bear one another’s burdens. “Through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13) means to bear each other’s burdens. After all, bearing burdens is the work of servants. The term burdens may refer to all kinds of physical, emotional, mental, moral or spiritual burdens: for example, financial burdens, the consequences of cancer or the results of divorce. The list of burdens crushing fellow Christians could be extended indefinitely. And no doubt the command to carry each other’s burdens covers every conceivable kind of burden and calls for us to be sensitive enough to perceive even the unseen burdens that our brothers and sisters try to hide.

But in the context the command seems to be directed primarily to the burdens of sin referred to in Galatians 6:1. When we carry each other’s burdens in this way, we will fulfill the law of Christ. Paul’s reference to the law of Christ here establishes a striking contrast between fulfilling the law of Christ and keeping the law of Moses. Keeping the law of Moses was the preoccupation of the teachers of the law and all who followed their message in the Galatian churches. But their focus was on how the observance of the Mosaic law separated God’s people, the Jewish nation, from “Gentile sinners” (Galatians 2:15). Circumcision, purity and dietary laws, and sabbath and festival regulations were boundary markers established by the law of Moses to preserve the unique identity of the Jewish people. Maintaining the ethnic identity of the Jewish people by observing these boundaries was viewed as a fulfillment of the purpose of the law of Moses. All who lived within these boundaries would certainly enjoy the blessing of God; all who lived outside of these boundaries by neglecting to observe them were under God’s curse. The teachers of the law insisted that the Gentile believers had to live within these boundaries to be reckoned among the people of God. Their zeal for the law made them intolerant of all nonconformists to these standards.

Paul knew from his own experience in Judaism before his encounter with Christ how destructive such zeal for the law could be (Galatians 1:13-14). His conflict with “false brothers” in the Jerusalem church (Galatians 2:4-5) and with Peter in the church at Antioch confirmed how quickly zeal for the law could divide the church by classifying Gentile believers as “Gentile sinners” and excluding them from the people of God. And now the zealous teachers of the law are inciting Christians in the Galatian churches to bite, devour, provoke and envy each other. Ironically, their preoccupation with keeping the Mosaic law resulted in breaking the central commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31).

To Be Continued

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