Life Project Blog

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.

Galatians 6:1-6

Love is at the very core of this paragraph.  No longer is Paul giving the Galatians “what for.” Now, he is telling them more about this life in the Spirit.  Notice that he begins addressing what should be done if someone sins; they should be restored gently.  How this contrasts with the impulse of some to finish the person off with condemnation and abuse!  He also mentioned that we should be careful in doing this, lest we too should fall into sin; I think it is interesting that Paul dropped that in where he did.  Consider the picture of the one who is helping his brother or sister back into line.  I suppose it might be human nature, but how easy it would be to adopt an air of superiority when working with one who had stumbled, when we ourselves might not have fallen into the trap; maybe that is the kind of temptation Paul had in mind.

The next sentence is a great one, too:  “Carry each other’s burdens…” sounds to me like the opposite of “not getting involved.” Help each other out in any circumstance that arises is Paul’s loving message here. Then he follows up with another injunction that if we think we are something we’re not, we’re self-deceived.  It strikes me how important it is to keep in mind who and what we are in Christ, rather than letting ourselves get carried away with our own good deeds, our own righteousness and our own importance.  No, we are Christ’s humble servants who rejoice in putting the other person ahead of ourselves; we are His disciples who love our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  That’s it. Any glory this might generate is the sole property of God.

Paul says that we should also test our own actions to ensure that we remain on the right path, that we should avoid making comparisons with others.  I think this might be his advice for two reasons.  First, so that we avoid the temptation to think we are better than someone else, and second, to avoid our thinking that we are less than someone else− there is no favoritism in Christ! Of course, if there is no favoritism in Christ, it would also be correct to say that there is also no free lunch; we can carry our own loads, which I think is to say that we can all serve Him to the best of our abilities.

Finally, Paul has a rather cryptic comment: Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.  What an odd thing to say right there! After saying we all should carry our own loads, he throws in “nevertheless” and talks about sharing “all good things” with our instructor if we receive instruction in the Word.  I guess you might be able to come to more than one opinion about what he is talking about here, but my take is that Paul is reminding the people that the elder who also teaches is to receive “double honor,” which is to say that they should be paid. Yes, believe it or not, that is the general view of most scholars on this verse.  I have spent almost 20 years as an elder who did the teaching, sometimes exclusively.  I never received a dime, but there was also a ministerial staff that cited this as reason they were paid…

Happily, I’m OK with carrying my own load!

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Galatians 5:22-26

Last time we saw rebellion: The results of living by the flesh and its desires. Now we see redeemed: The fruit the Spirit.  Earlier we saw that all of the actions that people engage in that result from this life by the “flesh” are acts that are self-centered and in rebellion against God.  Now we see the opposite; the results of a life lived for God in humble service to His purpose.

Living our lives in relationship with Jesus are not lives lived in a legalistic quagmire of “do’s and don’ts.” It isn’t a life of “obligation” either holy or otherwise; it is a life of victorious freedom! It is a life of purpose, a purpose greater than any one of us… the greatest purpose in the entire universe, for it is the very Eternal Purpose of God Himself. No, it isn’t the kind of a purpose that will make you a big shot who will be remembered in the annals of human history. It isn’t the kind of purpose that will have streets named after you all over the country. No, it is a purpose that will take you back to the Garden of Eden with a chance to do it all over again, only this time you’ll get it right.

OK, fine, maybe you’re wondering what the heck I mean by that…

You know the story: God created Adam and Eve for fellowship with Him.  They had direct access to God, they spoke with Him and walked through the garden, so we would say there was relationship between Man and God. God also gave them some things to do for Him.  They tended the garden and had “dominion” over the earth.  This ‘dominion” was a “God function,” kind of like a “mission” to run things as His stewards. Thus, we say that God gave them a purpose. Relationship with purpose is fellowship, God’s reason for creating humans.  You also know that Adam and Eve rebelled against God when they listened to the serpent’s lie that eating the forbidden fruit would make them just like God.

Now, through Jesus Christ, this fellowship has been restored.  First, He took away the sin problem by His death on the cross.  Since sin was out of the way, it became possible to restore relationship between humans and God, and direct access was restored through the indwelling Holy Spirit, so once again we can speak directly with God.  Jesus also gave us a purpose when He gave His commission to the church to “make disciples”.  Relationship and purpose are fellowship, and thus through Christ, God’s original purpose for making humanity in the first place is restored.  This is what Paul is talking about when he refers to life by the Spirit, and the fruits of that life are what he listed in this text.

Think about how amazing this is:  Why wouldn’t we be filled with joy and peace and all the rest, when we are restored back to the original state for which we were created?  Now, when you reflect on this, it is so much easier to understand why Paul reacted the way he did when he heard what was going on in the Galatian churches.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions  and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

Paul has been telling his readers about this whole concept of life in the flesh as contrasted with life in the Spirit, and as we saw last time, life in the flesh is what Paul says to refer to a life that is centered on the physical needs and impulses of the body; of the physical world.  Here, he gives us a list of things that would be a part of this kind of living: It is not an exhaustive list. We know that because he adds “and the like” after it.  Thus, this is a listing of the kinds of things that show what he is referring to.

Take a careful look; think about them.  Don’t think about them in a “legal” sense, look more deeply and consider what they tell you about a person who gives these sorts of things a priority in their life.  Take a minute or two to reflect…

OK, if you did this little exercise, you must have noticed that these are things that have something in common; they are all self-centered.  Did you see that?  They are all about ME!

“I can do what I want, I can do whatever feels good and I can use or abuse others in the process.” Now, let’s think some more. More often than not for most of these, a person doing any one of them will not want to admit to just anyone that they did it… at least at first, for they feel a sense of shame.  This may change over time for some but even so, these aren’t the kinds of things most people would want their grandmother to know about. Why? Is it because of the oppression of the capitalist classes or the military-industrial complex?  No.  It’s because deep down, in their heart of hearts, most people know they shouldn’t act this way, yet they do it anyway.

Why do they do it anyway, even though they know they shouldn’t, and they know that these kinds of behaviors cause no end of trouble?  It’s simple really, because they want to be like the Most High God, knowing both good and evil.  Yes, that sounds familiar, it’s the lie the serpent told Eve way back in the Garden of Eden; it is the original sin.  Of course, the serpent had done the same thing, for before Eden, Lucifer, the most powerful, brilliant and beautiful of all the angels decided one day that he wanted to be like the Most High God. That, dear reader, is the basic and primary impulse of rebellion against God Himself, it is the Fall of Man all over again, and it is why Paul says that “those who live like that will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Galatians 5:16-18

Paul is taking another swing at the Law, but then that’s the whole point of his letter.  He does so here in an interesting way as he points out something so fundamentally obvious to even a brand new Christian that it should be impossible to argue with.

Living by the flesh is in conflict with living by the Spirit.

Anybody surprised by this revelation?  I didn’t think so. Some time back, I called living by the Spirit “counter-intuitive” and so it is.

I come from a doctrinal background that has traditionally relegated the Holy Spirit to theoretical status. “The Holy Spirit speaks to us in God’s Word” is the policy. Of course, I would never deny that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Word; after all, the Word is the mind of the Spirit, as they say.  But is that it?  Doesn’t the Spirit lead us in other ways? I’m thinking that He does, since Paul just said so.  Oh, wait, what’s that?  That’s the Word that’s saying that?

OK, maybe you got me on that point, but… when Paul wrote that, he couldn’t possibly have intended it to be taken that way, since there was no New Testament at that time.  Did something change?

Yes, dear reader, these are the words that begin the debate…  My doctrinal background, the one that relegated following the Spirit’s leading to an academic exercise ended up debating itself to death, and split up over the style of music more than a hundred years ago; can you imagine anything so silly? I highly doubt that the Spirit was leading anybody to that end, either in or out of the Word!

You might well know some other past errors that you could bring up here.  What I think is important for us to understand is that we can overcome all this foolishness fairly easily.  First, love your neighbor as yourself.  Second, live by the Spirit, follow His leading, yearn for His presence and ask Him to help you discern.  He will not let you down!