Galatians 6:2 Commentary and Bible Study

Compassion demands that we help those who we see to be struggling under a burden. We would do this even with an animal; how much more with a fellow believer. While we have capacity to help others who need our help, and fail to do so, how can we be obeying Christ’s command to love fellow believers? Do we not know what it is to be under a burden, then love demands that we do not leave others to bear those burdens alone while we bear nothing. Love must make us willing not only to show kindness to others but to help them. One way in which we will do this is to help those who have been overtaken in a fault, though there are many other ways also. What is it to bear the burden of another? It is not just to offer a passing word of comfort and then to move on again; it is to take practical steps so they can see that we are with them under the burden; it is to take some of the weight of it from them. It is to show them that we will stay there under that burden with them while it lasts. What relief it is to the burden bearer to know that there is a heart that is willing to share that burden with them who will make it partly their own. That is to feel the love of another Christian.The way in which we bear each other’s burdens will depend on the nature of the burden and there are a myriad of ways in which this exhortation can be carried out. Job says, ‘I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth’ (Job 29:15-17).