Helping Your Brother

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). Concerning this passage, an eloquent preacher of the past wrote: “Many persons are caught with the most superficial contradiction. In the second verse it says, ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens’; and in the fifth it says, ‘Every man shall bear his own burden.’ As if both of them could not be true! As if a man carrying a burden for which he is especially responsible might not have it lightened somewhat by one who walked by his side and helped him! As if a little child carrying a heavily laden basket—which it was his task and business to carry, and which he had to take care of—might not be helped by another child walking by his side and taking hold of the handle. Might it not be said to one of them, ‘This is your burden, and you must see to it’; and to the other, ‘Help him with his burden.’ To bear one another’s burdens does not mean to take them from one another’s shoulders, but to help each other to carry them.”