Bear One Another's Burdens

Bear One Another's Burdens

In a small church in rural Appalachia, a tradition developed in the 1940s when the economy collapsed: families would arrive at church with their meals and share them. Over time the tradition expanded — whenever a family faced a hardship, the church organized work parties to repair their home, harvest their crops, care for their children. A sociologist who studied the community decades later wrote: 'These people had lower incomes than the surrounding region but measurably higher levels of wellbeing by every metric. The reason was clear: they carried one another.' The law of Christ — love your neighbor — was being practiced in the most literal and material way.

Galatians 6:2 comes immediately after Paul's instruction to 'restore gently' those who are caught in sin (verse 1), creating a picture of a community engaged in one another's lives at a practical level. The word 'burdens' (bare) refers to a heavy load — not the ordinary weight of daily life, but the crushing weight that requires more than one person to bear. 'Carry' is the same word used of a beast of burden — active, physical, strenuous. The law of Christ that this fulfills is the love commandment of John 13:34: 'Love one another as I have loved you.' Jesus carried the ultimate burden on behalf of others. His followers bear one another's lesser burdens in the same spirit. Christian community is not a social club. It is a burden-sharing family.