David Morris

Christian yokefellows

I started thinking about and looking into the concept when Ben emailed me and asked me what I thought about that powerful little verse. And then Miss Geter burst the thought into my consciousness with an amazing blog, and I just had to go home and look at Galatians 6. There's little I could say to compare with the power of your blog, Steph, but if I may I'd love to add a few thoughts from Galatians 6.

For starters, "bear ye one another's burdens" is a command. It is not any more a suggestion than is "walk in the Spirit," which occurs directly before it for a reason. Want to know what walking in the Spirit looks like? Walking in the Spirit, when practically lived out in Christian relationships, means loving other Christians enough to meekly help them with the sin they get tripped up by (6:1) and to help them with their burdens (6:2).
There is an unusual emphasis on the "one another," because it comes first in the Greek. That's odd, because there's a definite stress on the first concept presented, and you wouldn't expect it to be the adjective. God is focusing our attention on each other, turning our gaze from ourselves and our needs to others.
I think of yokefellow to describe "bearing" because there's something personal and relational conveyed in the idea. It's not like hauling a load in a truck or with some other mechanical means. It's you personally shouldering a weight that will strain you, and you do that work with the other party in the yoke.
This word means a heavy, burdensome weight. We're talking the oppressive, daily kind of struggle that wears you out. Temptation, the loss of a job, particularly strong emotional struggle, family pressure...the list could go on and on.
American Christians are burdened people. All Christians are. (two suggested reasons--1. we don't understand or know our God well enough. 2. we don't practice fellowship the way He intended. but those reasons don't change the reality of the burdens and our need to passionately seek solutions for hurting people who aren't living God's way. and to honestly face our own burdens. and our own failure to handle life's burdens God's way.
i think sometimes we find it...embarassing to say American Christians (or we) are burdened: however, i fail to see how telling yourself you shouldn't feel burdened, comparing yourself with the host of other Christians who have it worse, and ignoring the problem will lead to any biblical change. our God asks us to cast our burdens on Him, not make ourselves miserable that we have them.)
It's illuminating to see the results of obeying this command. You will fulfill the law of Christ. There's a lot of debate about what that means, but I think context is king again. Look at Galatians 5:13-14. You can't do the commandment Christ Himself identified as parallel to the greatest of His commands if you aren't bearing one another's burdens.
(Thou shalt love the Lord thy God...the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. there's a reason "magnifying love" appears at the top of this page. like glorifying God, it's one of those everywhere-you-look-in-your-Bible type of concepts)
A failure to obey this command can be traced to at least one source definitively--pride. How can I say that? Look at verse 3 of Galatians 6. It begins with "for," tying it directly to verse 2. You are decieved if you think you are something when you're nothing. You've been duped if you think a. you're above having burdens you can't handle yourself. b. you can ignore this command without effect on your spiritual life.
How can we "bear each other's burdens?" Several suggestions: you can't bear what you don't know about. get honestly involved in the lives of your brothers and sisters. you can't bear burdens for people you don't love. learn what 1 Cor. 13 means. you can't bear burdens without taking them to your Father (1 Peter 5:7). pray fervently for the needs of others.
This command isn't supposed to be some extremist philosophy that means you try to discover and bear the slightest needs of everyone around you. The passage goes on to say that each man will bear his own load. That's a different Greek word than "burden," and the general consensus among commentators is that load conveys the idea of a soldier's pack, or an individual burden.
We all have burdens of responsibility and need that we are meant to carry. That's healthy. For instance, if you break a struggling butterfly out of it's cacoon, you'll hurt it and not help it. The biblical command is balanced, and we should be too. Balanced does not mean ignoring, glossing over, or hiding from the burdens of others; nor does it mean frenetically heaping concerns on yourself that don't rightly belong to you.
This command is universal. That means it applies to you. That means it applies to me. This hasn't been some esoteric discussion of ideology. This passage has riveted my attention and convicted me of my sin. The issue of fellowship can (and Lordwilling will) get a lot more discussion, but this I do know--I need to get a lot better at it. (so there's another burden you can help me with. :-) Go be a Christian yokefellow today.

You bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

apelles