Watch yourselves…
Galatians 6:1 - Restore that person gently, and keep from sinning yourself
“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”
Galatians 6:1 NIV
God pointed me to the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians today, and as we expect from God’s Word, it is full of wisdom. Paul was concerned that there may be some Christians in the Galatian church who had been caught in a sin. He’s not referring to someone who is a habitual sinner — like a husband who frequents prostitutes, a career thief, or an embezzling tax collector — but instead a person who has fallen into sin unexpectedly. The Ancient Greek word used here for “caught” is προλαμβάνω (prolambanō), which can also be translated as “overtaken”.
In using this word, Paul is not stressing a deliberate or planned pattern of sin, but someone who makes a mistake and sins as a result. Martin Luther referred to this as being “seduced by the devil and of the flesh”, and that’s a perfect way to look at this occasional sinner. All of us have been seduced by temptations at one point or another and have sinned, and Paul doesn’t want this to be a cause to be thrown out of the church.
Instead, Paul asks the Galatians who “live by the Spirit” to “restore that person gently.” In other words, don’t ignore them and pretend they haven’t sinned. Don’t excuse the sinner, nor kick them out of the church. They are to be restored.
Paul used a word in this verse that was very familiar to him — καταρτίζω (katartizō) — meaning “mend” or “repair”. As a former fisherman, along with several of the other early disciples of Jesus, Paul mended and repaired his nets. The idea here is to take something that is damaged (like the fishnet in the image at the top of this devotional) and bring it back into working condition again.
He goes on to say that the person should be restored gently — in some translations, it says that the restoration should be done in a “spirit of gentleness”. The commentary from Enduring Word says this:
Restoration must always be done in a spirit of gentleness, with full understanding of our own weakness and corruption. Those doing the restoring must guard against the temptation of pride, as well as the same temptation the overtaken one struggled with.
i. “Let the ministers of the Gospel learn from Paul how to deal with those who have sinned. ‘Brethren,’ he says, ‘if any man be overtaken with a fault, do not aggravate his grief, do not scold him, do not condemn him, but lift him up and gently restore his faith.” (Luther)
ii. “This suggests that gentleness is born of a sense of our own weakness and proneness to sin.” (Stott)
iii. The influence of the legalists among the Galatians made this warning necessary; “Nothing reveals the wickedness of legalism better than the way the legalists treat those who have sinned.” (Wiersbe)
Got that, fellow sinners? While this commentary doesn’t say anything about how to guard “against the same temptation the overtaken one struggled with”, I think what Paul was trying to warn against was our very human tendency to commiserate with others who we’re “restoring” to the point that we join them in their sin (“sure, I’ll cover for you as you cheat on your husband one last time…”).
One final note on Galatians 6:1 — the best person to emulate when trying to figure out how to “restore that person gently” is Jesus. The perfect example was described in John 7:53 - 8:11, when the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery before Jesus. The self-righteous religious leaders wanted her to be stoned to death, to which Jesus said “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.” (John 8:7, NLT). Everyone left but Jesus, who didn’t condemn the woman, but instead told her “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Perhaps the best way for one who lives by the Spirit to gently restore a wayward sinner is to not “go all religious” on them, but have them acknowledge the sin (which they’re probably feeling guilty about anyway…) and point out that the best thing for them to do is repent, learn from their mistake, and “leave your life of sin”.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Lord, help me to be more kind, compassionate, and gracious toward my brothers and sisters in Christ. May I grow to love others in the same way that Christ loved me and sacrificed Himself for me. Teach me to show forgiveness and grace to others, and to honor others above myself. May I be gentle and show love in my dealings with others, particularly those who have strayed from the path of righteousness. Finally, keep me humble before You, and keep me from sin. I ask these things in Jesus’ name, AMEN.