Temptation and Burden Bearing

Temptation and Burden Bearing

Written by the Panhandling Philosopher

 

            Truth, like a gem, yields different facets from different angles of perspective. That might help to explain the thought that I would like to share with the readers of my blog today.

Truth yields different facets from varied perspectives (Photo source: Shutterstock)

 

            The words of I Corinthians 10:13 were written to encourage Christians dealing with temptations in life. They tell us that there is no temptation but what is common to humanity. The Apostle uses a facet of humanity’s shared experience of temptation to encourage us to withstand against temptation and not to think that in experiencing it we are isolated and alone as if no one else faces this. What another has faced and overcome can be encouraging to us.

            If temptation is common to humanity, then we who can be encouraged in our personal struggles with temptation, should likewise feel connected to others facing temptation, and merciful to those who have stumbled in the experience.

            The same Apostle who wrote I Corinthians 10:13 to encourage us to withstand temptation wrote Galatians 6 to encourage us to help others with their burdens, even as we seek to bear our own burdens. Paul writes, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1-2) Paul is looking, in these passages, at two different facets of the same truth of our shared human struggle with temptation. Bearing our own burden dealing with temptation should not make us think our only responsibility is our own burden. Facing our individual burden should instead awaken our awareness to how others also are carrying burdens in our shared humanity.

Bearing one another’s burdens doesn’t look like this (image source: Shutterstock)

 

            In Galatians, the Apostle Paul seems to have been especially seeking to encourage Christians tempted with legalism. They were tempted to imagine that superior performance to stricter standards produced superior Christian living. They could easily see superior obedience as a sort of Christian competition with the winner validating himself. The Apostle saw in the Galatians, a tendency to denigrate the work of Christ by glorifying our human embellishments beyond the simplicity of faith in Christ. We are often tempted to pursue these kinds of personal embellishments instead of encouraging others in Christ. We want to promote our brands of faith or our kinds of methods of living the faith alongside encouraging another in their life in Christ. This was happening among the Galatians and when this happens there are those who are becoming proud of their accomplishments while becoming insensitive towards the plight of others being denigrated by our competitive forms of holiness seeking. But the truth is, that temptation is common to man and if the shared human battle with temptation can be used to encourage one of us to stand firm despite our burden, it can also speak to each of us to stand with others in helping one another bear their burdens. This is so because temptation is a shared human experience.

We are called to bear our burdens, and it isn’t always easy. (photo source: Shutterstock)

 

Ultimately our shared human struggle with temptation is a burden that God has entered into in Christ’s entrance into humanity. He entered our humanity, so that in sharing our temptations he might overcome all temptation; that he might therein conquer sin and death and renew our humanity.

            At the core of every Christian message is that in Christ, God has become man. He has pitched his tent within our humanity. He has been tempted in all ways as we, yet without sin. When John the Baptist preached a gospel of the kingdom connected to his call to be baptized unto repentance, Jesus responded by submitting to such a baptism because he was taking our need for repentance upon himself. He pitched his tent with us and although he suffered temptation without sin, he had become one of us and took our temptations as well as our sins and the weakness of our death upon himself as his own burden that bearing his burden he might bear our burden that through him we might be granted redemption, reconciliation, healing and forgiveness, as well as righteousness unto eternal life.

 

Bearing another’s burden ought to be done, as if a personal honor of being allowed to carry the King into Jerusalem (Shutterstock photo)

            As I thought of the Gospel calling us to bear our own burdens and the burdens of others I began to be more and more aware that both responsibilities are based in the truth that all temptation is shared collectively as well as faced individually. It has all been united in Christ’s work who took our burdens upon himself in becoming man, in participating in John’s baptism, in looking upon us in our weakness, and in both dying for our sins and being raised for our justification. I realized something as I thought upon this.

            When I see another struggling or stumbling in confrontation with temptation, it is a reminder that his temptation and mine are common to our shared humanity. Therefore I must not see his temptation as separated from mine, but rather as a shared temptation. I must pray for him in his temptation as if it were my own temptation, and if I can’t do that I must pray for him in his temptation because Christ has sought to bear his temptation, sin, and death. So, in Christ this other man’s temptation, sin, and death have been given to me for I have been united with Christ and all things in him. I will in this way not think of sin lightly, and in this way I will not seek to judge another man who is fallen to a temptation with which I also must struggle. I must therefore bear his burden as well as my own or I bear neither his burden nor my own.