Gal. 6:2-5; Rom. 15:1-7, Bearing Each Other’s Burdens (2)

Bearing each other’s burdens, 6:2-5.

The term “burden” is not necessarily difficult to define.  It is simply something that is heavy or burdensome.  But we might have difficulty determining when a brother-in-Christ’s burden is one we should take on ourselves.  Something I often pray for, is that people will not take on themselves burdens God did not intend.  Usually I am thinking about such things as “worrying about tomorrow;” God did not intend that we do that, so I pray that people will be able to trust God to carry tomorrow’s burdens.

But when am I obligated to share another person’s burden?  After all, we have an additional goal in today’s passage, that we be able to bear our own burdens.  Am I to help a brother carry any of his burdens, any burden he asks help to bear, if it is one he should bear himself? 

To help us think about this, let me add some definitions of the term in this context.  A. T. Robertson says the burden the Lord has in mind is one that is about ready to press down the individual.  We can see him or her failing under the load.  ISBE (Int’l. Standard Bible Encyclopedia) says the burden speaks of a difficult requirement, even one involving moral infirmities. 

Let’s see if, from Scripture, we can be a little more precise.

·       I would say that the restoring of a brother caught in sin is one of those burdens that we should help them bear.  That is the immediate context.  And the word “caught” indicates, as we noted, a situation that has overcome them.

·       Romans 14:1-15:6 speak of another burden, that of a brother young in the Lord who is weak in the faith.  The context has to do with issues like eating meat sacrificed to idols and which day is the proper day of worship.  These are two issues that, in the end, are not important.  We can tailor our views and practices if we see it has the potential to cause a brother in Christ to stumble.  We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples (weaknesses) of the weak, and not to please ourselves (Rom. 15:1).

·       Acts 11:27-30 speaks of a material burden that should be shared.  It involved the Jerusalem Church, during the time of a great famine.  The Church at Antioch took an offering and sent it to their brothers and sisters.  Paul argued this offering was appropriate in Rom. 15:25-27.  You may remember in Ac. 6 the Jerusalem Church cared for widows, providing meals for them.  Not welfare or a way of life but burden-bearing. 

Any time a brother is stumbling under his load should catch our attention, at least.  God promises a “way of escape” in all our trials (1 Cor. 10:13).  Sometimes that escape involves the sharing of the load by those in the body of Christ.