by Kent Leslie ✉️
I first have to highlight that word spiritual in Galatians 6.1. There are a lot of people nowadays who describe themselves as “spiritual” (often “spiritual, but not religious”). You ask these “spiritual” people what they mean by spiritual, and most of their answers have to do with how they know they have a spirit, and how they’re in touch with it. And you’ll notice most of the time they’re talking about how they feel. How they feel in their spirit; how they know in their spirit (because it makes ’em feel stuff). You might notice a lot of Christians will say the very same thing.
But in the scriptures, when the apostles use the word πνευματικός/nefmatikós, “spiritual,” it means having to do with the Holy Spirit. Not our own spirits; certainly not evil spirits. God’s spirit. The third person of the trinity. The God who lives inside us and helps us. That guy.
Spiritual isn’t about being in touch with my feelings. (Although I should be in touch with my feelings. And recognize why I feel the way I do, and take control of them, instead of irrationally responding to my emotions like a fleshly person.) It’s about following the Holy Spirit. It’s about his fruit, his spiritual gifts; anything having to do with him. I’m trying to pay attention to the God who was sealed to me when I first became Christian.
So when Paul writes you who are spiritual [Ga 6.1] he means “you who follow the Spirit.” The kind of spiritual we’re meant to be.
Any wrongdoing. [Ga 6.1] Paul’s not talking about sin, ἁμαρτία/amartía, but about wandering off in the wrong direction, παράπτωμα/paráptoma. It literally means to fall over. Sometimes we translate it “stumble” or “trespass” or “backslide.” We go the wrong way because we think it’s the right way. We make mistakes. We get sidetracked. We go off on tangents… well I certainly do.
Wrong can refer to sin, but doesn’t always. And regardless of what it is, we’re instructed to restore such a person with a gentle spirit. [Ga 6.1] The CSB’s word “restore” is καταρτίζετε/katartídzete, “mend.” Fix them. But gently, not harshly, not strictly. Definitely not angrily. Gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit, and that’s how our own spirits oughta be.
You notice verse 2 says Carry one another’s burdens, but verse 5 says each person will have to carry his own load. That’s actually not an inconsistency. Verse 5 is using a future tense: It’s describing how eventually, later, we Christians oughta reach the point of maturity where we can carry our own loads. As well as help others carry their loads. But immature Christians can’t do that yet. And even mature Christians would appreciate the help. So let’s help each other out.
Most of the time back then, carrying someone else’s burden was forced upon people. Some Roman soldier would nab a non-Roman and force ’em to carry their stuff. (Like when they forced Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’s cross.) Roman law said they couldn’t make them carry it for more than a mile. A Roman mile isn’t the same as our Imperial miles; it’s a little shorter. It’s in fact 1,000 paces. And you know people were counting those paces.
You might remember Jesus teaches if we ever gotta carry someone’s stuff for a mile, make it two. [Mt 5.41]
In this way you follow the law of Christ. [Ga 6.2] You remember Jesus’s new commandment was to love one another, [Jn 13.34] which is consistent with the one command which kinda sums up the Law by itself: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” [Lv 19.18, Ga 5.14]
For if anyone considers himself to be something. [Ga 6.3] This describes spiritual pride. It’s not listed among Paul’s works of the flesh, but it oughta be! Paul’s list wasn’t comprehensive anyway; there are other fleshly things we might do which could ruin us. Jesus, for example, mentions hypocrisy many times.
Spiritual pride is definitely inconsistent with Jesus’s attitude. He made himself nothing [Pp 2.7] and died for us. [Pp 2.8] He wants us to bear each other’s burdens until such time as we can bear them ourselves. Help them, not demand they pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Fix them gently, remember?
Paul says the spiritually proud person deceives himself, and that’s the word φρεναπατᾷ/frenapatá, a word which is only found in ancient Greek-language literature here, in Galatians 6.3. It’s because Paul did as we Americans do, and turned a noun into a verb. (Yep, he verbed a noun.) Ancient Greeks didn’t usually do that.
The noun is φρεναπάτης/frenapátis, which literally means “mind-stomper.” By stomping, I mean like stomping on wine in a winepress, or stomping on snakes and scorpions. People with spiritual pride are kinda stomping on their own minds: “Shut up, mind; I’m important!”
I mean, there’s a time and place for talking about how important each of us is to God our Father, but this isn’t that. This is about comparing ourselves to one another, and in that sense, none of us is any better than any other Christian. Everybody’s different, and we all have different skillsets. Somebody else can do things I can’t, and I can do things they can’t. And that’s good. We want that kind of diversity in the body of Christ. The Spirit deliberately puts it there. We can complement one another.
But if one of us is going, “Well what I do is way more important,” then we’ve got that head which says to the feet, “Well I don’t need you,” [1Co 12.21] and that’s ridiculous. I need my feet. Jesus needs our feet. For something other than stomping on our minds.