Dr Paul Allen

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbour. For each will have to bear his own load. (Gal. 6:1–5) In these five verses Paul uses the word bear twice: first to command his hearers to bear one another’s burdens and then to remind them that they must bear their own load. How can both of these statements be true simultaneously? Part of the answer comes from considering Paul’s use of the word law in verse 2. This is the only time we see the exact phrase the law of Christ.” There is something distinctive about the law of Christ—something that distinguishes it from the Old Testament law. Throughout Galatians, law is ...

  JOHN 13:4 Jesus’ call to his disciples in the Synoptic Gospels is clear. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24). We are called to “take up our crosses” and die to ourselves. It is less clear exactly what Jesus means when he asks us to “take up our cross.” Are we to imitate him in his death by literally dying on a cross, or literally dying on behalf of others? Are we all called to go to a closed country and be physically persecuted for Jesus’ sake? It is interesting that the gospel of John lacks this call to take up one’s cross. In fact, depending on the English version one uses, it can be difficult to see in John’s gospel anything at all that one is to “take up,” except for the healed paralytic’s taking up his “mat” (John 5:8). Reading the Greek text instead of relying on English translations, however, presents a different picture. John 13:4 gives us great insight into the meaning of “taking up the cross.” The Eng...