Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness… The law of Christ is the law of universal love; and it requires every man to be interested in every man and in his difficulties; to be in sympathy with him and in all the spirit of helpfulness, although the act may be beyond our power. It requires us also to be in sympathy with men, not only when they are doing right, but when they are doing wrong. A fault is anything inconsistent with the rule of life or duty. In common usage it is a minor transgression, but here undoubtedly it is comprehensive; it includes whatever a man does aside from the rule of rectitude, or aside from any law, ideal, or measure in life by which men are accustomed to be judged. It may respect the man's person, his body, health, his strength, or it may respect a man's mind, his judgment, temper, disposition generally. It may have respect to a man's social connections, neighbourhood; his relations to the family, and to all the collected families. It may have relation to his religious connection; what as a churchman, what as a professing Christian, his faults, feelings, and transgressions. It may have relation to his civil and business duties, commercial or political.... Nobody can free himself from the subtle and perpetual influences that work upon the intelligence, the conscience, the ideals of life. We are members of a complex body in family relations or in civil relations; and, as the foot cannot ache without having the whole body ache, and the hand cannot suffer and the whole body not suffer, so every man more or less is so connected by vital nerves with the whole community in which he is, that he comes up with them and goes down with them, and he commits faults simply because he cannot separate and disentangle himself quick enough not to go as the multitude are going. We are all of us in a drove. We are all of us of one nature in the one world, under the one system; and there is not a man living who does not commit faults every day of his life. They may not be of the severest kind. They may not be the faults you dislike the most. You commit them — not as your neighbour does, but in your own way. Everybody does, and everybody, therefore, is dependent upon the charity and the goodwill of his neighbour for himself; and the command is, "return that goodwill and that charity, since you yourself are liable to suffer in this very way, and are suffering all the time. Treat every man as you would wish him to treat you."... A brave man would not know that a companion was in captivity among the Indians, and not venture something for him. What if he did caution him not to ride out unattended? What if he did warn him? If the man was careless and heedless, and was snatched up, bound, and hidden away for to-morrow's torment, he would creep on his belly until the moon went down, and steal in and cut the man's cords and withs, and snake him out, and put himself behind him to defend him if they were discovered, and work him back again into liberty and the settlements .... The scope and the sweep of faults is so great, that you may just as well sit yourself down to this thing, that universal human nature is so poor and so weak and so liable to temptation, and to failure under temptation, that you must have compassion upon all men, or, as it is expressed in Hebrews, you must "have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way" — compassion universal, continuous, adequate, vital, and active. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. |
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