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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 6:6

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Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

6. him that is taught ] Lit. ‘the catechumen’; one who is undergoing instruction. When we consider that most of the instruction in the Word (i.e. the Gospel revelation) was oral, and that it was not limited to preaching in the assemblies of the Church, but extended to households and individuals, the work of the teacher must have been very arduous, demanding all his time and energies. Hence the necessity of proper provision being made for his maintenance. Exhortations to this effect are found in the ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,’ a document of the sub-Apostolic age.

in all good things ] Those earthly things which men generally covet are designated ‘goods’ or ‘good things’, Luk 12:18-19; Luk 16:25. In all of these, whether money, or food, or clothing or the like, the taught is to ‘communicate’ with the teacher, share them with him.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6 10. These verses, which are an exhortation to the exercise of liberality towards the Teachers of the Church, do not seem to have any obvious connexion with what has gone before. They may have been suggested as a particular application of the general principle, ‘bear ye one another’s burdens’. But we so often meet with a number of disconnected injunctions at the end of St Paul’s Epistles, that this abrupt introduction of this paragraph need cause no difficulty. The connecting particle, ‘but’ or ‘moreover’, omitted in A.V. is restored in R.V. The duty here enjoined is frequently insisted upon by St Paul, 1Co 9:11-14; Php 4:10; Php 4:17; 1Ti 5:17-18. He had already urged it upon the Galatian converts, as we learn from 1Co 16:1. That he insists upon it again in such forcible terms would seem to shew that they were not prone to the exercise of liberality.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Let him that is taught in the word – In the word of God; that is, the gospel.

Communicate unto him – Let him share with him who teaches; let there be a common participation of all good things.

In all good things – In everything that is needful for their comfortable subsistence. On the duty here enjoined see the notes at 1Co 9:11-13.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Gal 6:6

Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

The duty of ministerial support

It is one of the tricks of Satan to defraud godly ministers of support, that the Church may be deprived of their services. Pauls recommendation arose from a desire to preserve a gospel ministry. (Calvin.)

I do not love to expound such sentences which speak for us that are ministers of the Word; moreover, it may look, if one is zealous to treat such texts before the people, as if he did it on account of avarice. But one must nevertheless instruct the people thereabout, that they may know what degree of honour and support they owe to their teachers. This is also good for us, that are in the ministry, to know that we may not take our deserved recompense with uneasy conscience, as if we had no right to it. (Luther.)

A fair exchange

Between teachers and hearers there should be a lovely exchange and joyful barter. A hearer needs not to complain as though he suffered disadvantage in this exchange. Whoever will not give our Lord God a penny, gets his due when he is forced to give the devil a dollar. (Starke.)

The support of the ministry

I. A children are bound to maintain their parents (1Ti 5:4), so believers their spiritual parents (Gal 4:19; 1Co 4:15).

II. The Old Testament enjoins this (Deu 12:19), much more the New.

III. Every calling maintains those who live therein: the highest calling should do no less.

IV. Ministers are Gods soldiers, and should not go a warfare at their own cost; the Lords labourers, and therefore worthy of their hire; the Lords shepherds, and thereforeworthy the milk of the flock (see also Deu 25:4; cf. 1Co 9:9-10; 1Ti 5:17).

V. Ministers are to give themselves wholly to their work (2Ti 4:13-16), and therefore must not be entangled in the affairs of this life (2Ti 2:4).

VI. It is the ordinance of God that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel (1Co 9:14). (R. Cudworth.)

Material aids needful

Some people give as though they only half believed that Christ has ordained the money power as one of the powers of His cause; as if in travelling from place to place the missionary cost no more than the flight of an angel; as if the Philip of to-day might be caught away by the Spirit, and then suddenly be found at Azotus ; as if bills could be paid by devout emotions or declaratory words; as if lives could be sustained on mere air; as if ravens might be expected to bring food to fainting prophets; as if miracles of providence would provide for ministers of grace. But this is not Gods method of working now. You must furnish material supplies for material apparatus. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

Paying the minister

In 1662, the town of Eastham agreed that a part of every whale cast on shore be appropriated for the support of the ministry. The ministers must have sat on the cliffs in every storm, and watched the shore with anxiety. And for my part, if I were a minister, I would rather trust to the bowels of the billows to cast up a whale for me than to the generosity of many a country parish that I know. (Thoreau.)

Liberality to ministers

The people of one of the out parishes of Virginia wrote to Dr. Rice, then at the Theological Seminary in Prince Edward, for a minister. They wanted a man of first-rate talents, for they had run down considerably, and needed building up. They wanted one who could write well, for some of the young people were nice about that matter. They wanted one who could visit a good deal, for their former minister had neglected that, and they wanted to bring that up. They wanted a man of very gentlemanly depoitment, for some thought a great deal of that, and so they went on describing a perfect minister. The last thing mentioned was that they gave their last minister 70, but if the Doctor would send them such a man as they described, they would raise another 10, making it 80. The Doctor sat down and wrote them a reply, telling them they had better, forthwith make out a call for old Doctor Dwight in heaven, for he did not know of any one in this world who answered the description; and as Dr. Dwight had been living so long on spiritual food, he might not need so much for the body, and possibly he might live on 80. (Dr. Haven.)

It is my intention to expound and to defend this financial law of the Christian Church: Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

I. Let us expound this financial law of the Christian Church. The phrase in all good things may be connected either with the words him that teacheth; or with the words him that communicateth. It may mean either, first, Let him who is instructed in all good things communicate to him who thus instructs him; or, secondly, Let him who is instructed communicate all good things to him who instructs him. The necessity of a distinct order of men for the purpose of Christian instruction might be easily rested on rational principles. But I choose rather now to appeal to the will of the great Legislator I appeal to that passage contained in Eph 4:1-32.: When He ascended up on high He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men; and among these gifts he gave pastors and teachers. It is plain, from Scripture, that there ought to be an order of men devoted to this work. It is evident, also, that they should devote their whole time and attention to its duties: this might be grounded on rational principles, arising from the nature and number of the subjects which must necessarily be included in such instructions; but here, again, I shall refer to the will of the great Lawgiver. His determination is, that those who minister should wait on their ministering, and he that teacheth, on teaching; that such should give attendance to reading and exhortation; that they should meditate upon these things, and give themselves wholly to them. We are not to look at this subject as we look at our Missionary Societies, and Bible and Educational Societies: these are human institutions, and we may support them by human plans; but the Christian ministry is a divinely appointed means for a divinely appointed end; and the means of its support are divinely appointed too. We may as much err by using means different from those which Christ has instituted, as if we lost sight of the end itself.

II. Let us defend this financial law of the Christian Church. Like all the other laws of Christ it is holy, just, and good. It is an arrangement which is alike just, generous, and useful.

1. It is a just arrangement.

2. This is a generous as well as a just principle. Men who thus believe are brought under the influence of the love of Christ; and on this principle Christ secures the maintenance of His ministers in Christian Churches to the end of time.

3. This is a useful arrangement also. But objections have been made. First, it is said, Such an arrangement has a great tendency to degrade the Christian ministry. In one sense we may ask, Do such persons expect the Christian minister to be altogether independent? We are all dependent, and must necessarily be so. And who applies this mode of reasoning to other professions? Who would think of saying of a lawyer, or of a medical man, that they are low-spirited, time-serving, dependent men, because the one is dependent on his clients, and the other on his patients, for subsistence. Are they degraded by such dependence as this? Is the minister of Christ to be degraded, because he is supported by the same means by which Christ his Master was supported? It may seem strange that those who are to be accounted worthy of double honour, should be dependent for their support on the bounty of others. But when it is founded on such a principle as Christian love, I know not of a more honourable way than to be dependent on the will and love of others. Secondly, as to the objection that this arrangement throws difficulties in the way of the minister, by making it necessary for him to submit to much in order to cultivate the good-will of those to whom he preaches. But let them continue a Christian people, and then tell me how such a man should please such a people but by doing his duty towards them as a Christian minister. Thirdly, it is objected that it makes the subsistence of Christian ministers uncertain; and that it endangers the existence of the Christian ministry, and by this means, Christianity itself. I might say here, that all below is insecure; but I would say also, it does not appear that the subsistence of the Christian minister is more uncertain than that of other men. (J. Brown, M. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 6. Let him that is taught in the word] He who receives instructions in Christianity by the public preaching of the word;

Communicate unto him that teacheth] Contribute to the support of the man who has dedicated himself to the work of the ministry, and who gives up his time and his life to preach the Gospel. It appears that some of the believers in Galatia could receive the Christian ministry without contributing to its support. This is both ungrateful and base. We do not expect that a common schoolmaster will give up his time to teach our children their alphabet without being paid for it; and can we suppose that it is just for any person to sit under the preaching of the Gospel in order to grow wise unto salvation by it, and not contribute to the support of the spiritual teacher? It is unjust.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Let him that is taught in the word: the word here translated taught, signifieth catechised; and is the same word from which that word is derived; but it here signifieth taught, catechising being but a mode or species of teaching.

Communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things; the precept is concerning the maintenance of ministers, which is fitly expressed by the term communicate, because as the people distribute to their ministers things temporal, so the ministers distribute things spiritual. The

good things here mentioned are temporal good things, such as may be useful to the teacher for him to uphold himself and family. The text teacheth us, that it is the will of God that ministers should be maintained at the charge of the church to which they minister, and it is but an act of justice, for they do but communicate temporal things to those who communicate to them much more valuable things.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

6. From the mention of bearingone another’s burdens, he passes to one way in which those burdensmay be borneby ministering out of their earthly goods to theirspiritual teachers. The “but” in the Greek,beginning of this verse, expresses this: I said, Each shall bear hisown burden; BUT I do notintend that he should not think of others, and especially of thewants of his ministers.

communicate unto him“imparta share unto his teacher”: literally, “him that teachethcatechetically.”

in all good thingsinevery kind of the good things of this life, according as thecase may require (Rom 15:27;Rom 15:1; Rom 9:11;Rom 9:14).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Let him that is taught in the word,…. Instructed in the knowledge of the word, either of the essential Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, of his person, office, and grace; or rather of the written word, particularly the Gospel, which is sometimes called the word, without any additional epithet, which distinguishes it, and directs to the sense of it; and sometimes with such, as the words of truth, the word of faith, the word of righteousness, the word of reconciliation, and the word of this salvation, so called from the nature, use, and subject matter of it. He that is taught in this, is, according to the original word used here, a “catechumen”; and which designs not one that is just beginning to learn the first principles of the oracles of God, but anyone that is instructed in it, as this word is rendered in Ro 2:18 whether more or less, or whether internally or externally: one that is internally taught in and by the word, is one that has been taught to know himself, and his lost state by nature; to know Christ, and salvation by him; to know the truths of the Gospel, and to deny ungodliness, and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly. It may include everyone that is only outwardly taught, that is but an external hearer; and so the Syriac version renders the clause, , “he that hears the word”: of which there are many sorts, and on whom it is an incumbent duty to

communicate to him that teacheth; who is commissioned, and qualified and sent forth by Christ, and whose office in the church is to teach the word, to preach the Gospel, to instruct men in the truths of it, and teach them their duty also to God and men, such are to be communicated to; that is, such as are under their instructions ought to impart of their worldly substance to them, for their honourable and comfortable support and maintenance; for since they spend their time, and make use of their talents, gifts, and abilities, for their instruction in spiritual things, it is but reasonable, and no such great matter, that they partake of their carnal things; and especially since it is the will and ordinance of Christ, that they that preach the Gospel should live of it. The apostle adds,

in all good things; which may be either connected with the word “teacheth”, and so be descriptive of the teacher, as the Arabic version reads, “him that teacheth all his good things”; good doctrines, excellent truths, the wholesome words of Christ, which he is intrusted with, has a knowledge and experience of; and who freely and faithfully imparts them, and conceals and keeps back nothing, but declares the whole counsel of God, all that he knows, and that is good and profitable; and carries in it a very strong argument why he should be communicated to: or else with the word “communicate”; and the sense either be, let him be a partaker of, and join with him in everything he says or does that is good, but not in anything that is evil, which is a sense some give into; or rather let him impart of his temporal good things unto him: temporal things are good as they are of God, and in themselves, and when rightly used answer good purposes; all a man’s good things are not to be communicated, only a part, according to his ability, and in proportion to others; and yet the communication should be large and liberal, sufficient to support the teacher in an honourable manner, and to supply him with all the necessaries of life, that his mind may be free from secular cares, and he be at leisure to attend to the instructing of others.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

That is taught ( ). For this late and rare verb , see on Luke 1:4; Acts 18:25; 1Cor 14:19. It occurs in the papyri for legal instruction. Here the present passive participle retains the accusative of the thing. The active ( ) joined with the passive is interesting as showing how early we find paid teachers in the churches. Those who receive instruction are called on to “contribute” (better than “communicate” for ) for the time of the teacher (Burton). There was a teaching class thus early (1Thess 5:12; 1Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11; 1Thess 5:17).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

But, although each man is thus individualized as regards his burdens, Christian fellowship in all morally good things is to be maintained between the teacher and the taught. The passage is often explained as an injunction to provide for the temporal wants of Christian teachers. 90 But this is entirely foreign to the course of thought, and isolates the verse from the context on both sides of it. As vv. 1 – 5 refer to moral errors, in all good things has naturally the same reference, as do good in ver. 10 certainly has. The exhortation therefore is, that the disciple should make common cause with the teacher in everything that is morally good and that promotes salvation. The introduction at this point of the relation of disciple and teacher may be explained by the fact that this relation in the Galatian community had been disturbed by the efforts of the Judaising teachers, notably in the case of Paul himself; and this disturbance could not but interfere with their common moral effort and life.

Him that is taught [ ] . See on Luk 1:4.

In the word [ ] . The gospel. Usually in Paul with some qualifying word, as of God. Comp. Act 4:4; Act 8:4; Act 11:19; Act 14:25; Act 16:6; 1Th 1:6; Col 4:3.

Communicate [] . Hold fellowship with; partake with. Not impart to. The word is used of giving and receiving material aid (Phi 4:15) : of moral or spiritual participation (Rom 14:27; 1Ti 5:22; 2 John 11) : of participation in outward conditions (Heb 2:14) : in sufferings (1Pe 4:13).

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

OBLIGATION TO SUPPORT TEACHERS

1) “Let him that is taught in the Word,” (ho katechournenos ton logon) “Let the one being instructed in the word;” Is it the instructor, “a being taught one,” or the pupil “being taught one” here involved? It appears to be both — an obligation of every good teacher to share, not “hold knowledge from” the unlearned, and the pupil to obey the following:

2) “Communicate to him,” (koinoneito de) “Let him moreover share,” in common things of life, food, clothing, and shelter– or financial help, yet not to material and financial help alone; he is to share his help received from the instructor, by returned expressions of gratitude, Rom 12:1; Rom 12:3; Php_4:15.

3) “Unto him that teacheth,” (to katechounti) “with, to or toward the one instructing or teaching”; to the one instructing or giving out, imparting information or knowledge to him, Rom 15:26-28.

4) “In all good things,” (en pasin agathois) “In all genuine good things,” or godly things. Note the restrictions on contributing to or sharing with the teacher or instructor; the obligation of material gift, pay, offering, or even gratitude is in “good things,” 1Co 9:11; Luk 12:18-19; Luk 16:25. These are to be shared in life, not greedily hoarded.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

6. Let him that is taught in the word. It is probable that the teachers and ministers of the word were at that time neglected. This shewed the basest ingratitude. How disgraceful is it to defraud of their temporal support those by whom our souls are fed! — to refuse an earthly recompense to those from whom we receive heavenly benefits! But it is, and always has been, the disposition of the world, freely to bestow on the ministers of Satan every luxury, and hardly to supply godly pastors with necessary food. Though it does not become us to indulge too much in complaint, or to be too tenacious of our rights, yet Paul found himself called upon to exhort the Galatians to perform this part of their duty. He was the more ready to do so, because he had no private interest in the matter, but consulted the universal benefit of the Church, without any regard to his own advantage. He saw that the ministers of the word were neglected, because the word itself was despised; for if the word be truly esteemed, its ministers will always receive kind and honorable treatment. It is one of the tricks of Satan to defraud godly ministers of support, that the Church may be deprived of such ministers. (98) An earnest desire to preserve a gospel ministry, led to Paul’s recommendation that proper attention should be paid to good and faithful pastors.

The word is here put, by way of eminence, ( κατ ᾿ ἐξοχὴν,) for the doctrine of godliness. Support is declared to be due to those by whom we are taught in the word. Under this designation the Papal system supports idle bellies of dumb men, and fierce wild beasts, who have nothing in common with the doctrine of Christ. In all good things. He does not propose that no limit should be set to their worldly enjoyments, or that they should revel in superfluous abundance, but merely that none of the necessary supports of life should be withheld. Ministers ought to be satisfied with moderate fare, and the danger which attends pomp and luxury ought to be prevented. To supply their real necessities, let believers cheerfully devote any part of their property that may be required for the services of devout and holy teachers. What return will they make for the invaluable treasure of eternal life, which is communicated to them by the preaching of those men?

(98) “ De tels serviteurs.” “Of such servants.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Gal. 6:6. Communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.Go shares with him in the good things of this life. While each bears his own burden he must think of others, especially in ministering out of his earthly goods to the wants of his spiritual teacher (see 2Co. 11:7; 2Co. 11:11; Php. 4:10; 1Th. 2:6; 1Th. 2:9; 1Ti. 5:17-18).

Gal. 6:7. God is not mocked.The verb means to sneer with the nostrils drawn up in contempt. Excuses for illiberality may seem valid before men, but are not so before God.

Gal. 6:8. He that soweth to his flesh.Unto his own flesh, which is devoted to selfishness. Shall reap corruption.Destruction, which is not an arbitrary punishment of fleshly-mindedness, but is its natural fruit; the corrupt flesh producing corruption, which is another word for destruction. Corruption is the fault, and corruption the punishment.

Gal. 6:9. Let us not be weary: we shall reap, if we faint not.Weary refers to the will; faint to relaxation of the powers. No one should faint, as in an earthly harvest sometimes happens.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gal. 6:6-10

Moral Sowing and Reaping.

I. Beneficence by the taught towards the teacher is sowing good seed.Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things (Gal. 6:6). The good things referred to, though not confined to temporal good, do certainly mean that. While every man must bear his own burden, he must also help to bear the burden of his brother. Especially must the taught go shares with his spiritual teacher in all things necessary. But beneficence shown towards the minister in temporalities is the least, and with many the easiest, part of the duty. Teacher and taught should mutually co-operate with each other in Christian work, and share with each other in spiritual blessings. The true minister of the gospel is more concerned in eliciting the co-operation and sympathy of the members of his Church than in securing their temporal support. If he faithfully ministers to them in spiritual things, they should be eager to minister unto him of their worldly substance, and to aid him in promoting the work of God. Every good deed, done in the spirit of love and self-sacrifice, is sowing good seed.

II. By the operation of unchanging divine law the reaping will correspond to the kind of seed sown and the nature of the soil into which it is cast.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, etc. (Gal. 6:7-8). Men may wrong each other, but they cannot cheat God. To expect God to sow His bounties upon them, and not to let Him reap their gratitude and service, is mockery. But it is not God they deceive; they deceive themselves. For at last every one shall reap as he sows. The use made of our seed-time determines exactly, and with a moral certainty greater even than that which rules in the natural field, what kind of fruitage our immortality will render. Eternity for us will be the multiplied, consummate outcome of the good or evil of the present life. Hell is just sin riperotten ripe. Heaven is the fruitage of righteousness. He that soweth to his own flesh reaps corruptionthe moral decay and dissolution of the mans being. This is the natural retributive effect of his carnality. The selfish man gravitates downward into the sensual man; the sensual man downward into the bottomless pit. He that soweth to the Spirit reaps life everlasting. The sequence is inevitable. Like breeds its like. Life springs of life, and death eternal is the culmination of the souls present death to God and goodness. The future glory of the saints is at once a divine reward and a necessary development of their present faithfulness (Findlay, passim).

III. Sowing the seed of good deeds should be prosecuted with unwearied perseverance.

1. Because the harvest is sure to follow. Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not (Gal. 6:9). Here is encouragement for the wearied, baffled worker. We have all our moments of despondency and disappointment, and are apt to imagine our labours are futile and all our painstaking useless. Not so. We are confounding the harvest with the seed-time. In due seasonin Gods time, which is the best timewe shall reap, if we faint not. Our heavenly harvest lies in every earnest and faithful deed, as the oak with its centuries of growth and all its summer glory sleeps in the acorn-cup, as the golden harvest slumbers in the seeds under their covering of wintry snow.

2. Because the opportunity of doing good is ever present.As we have opportunity let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith (Gal. 6:10). The whole of life is our opportunity, and every day brings its special work. Opportunity is never to seek; it is ever present. There is not a moment without a duty. While we are looking for a more convenient opportunity we lose the one that is nearest to us. As members of the household of faith there is ever work enough to dowork that fits us to do good on a wider scaleunto all men. True zeal for the Church broadens rather than narrows our charities. Household affection is the nursery, not the rival, of love to our fatherland and to humanity.

Lessons.

1. Our present life is the seed-time of an eternal harvest.

2. The quality of the future harvest depends entirely on the present sowing.

3. God Himself is the Lord of the moral harvest.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Gal. 6:6. Pastors and People.

I. It is the duty of the people to give their pastors not only countenance but maintenance.

II. It is the law of nations, and a conclusion grounded on common equity, that those who spend themselves, as a candle, to give light to others and for the common good of all, should be maintained of the common stock by all.

III. Every calling is able to maintain them that live therein, therefore we may not think that the ministry, the highest calling, should be so base or barren as that it cannot maintain them that attend thereupon.

IV. Ministers are the Lords soldiers, captains, and standard-bearers, and therefore are not to go a warfare at their own cost.

V. Ministers are to give themselves wholly to the building of the Church and to the fighting of the Lords battles. Therefore they are to have their pay that they may attend upon their calling without distraction.

VI. It is the ordinance of God that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.Ministers should be liberally provided for, yet with moderation, that they draw not all mens wealth into their purses. He that would live of the gospel must teach the gospel. A benefit requires a duty, and diligence in that duty.Perkins.

Ministerial Maintenance.

1. Seeing Christs ministers are to bestow themselves wholly in the work of the ministry and not to be entangled with the affairs of this life, therefore the people of God, among whom they spend their strength, are bound by common equity to give them worldly maintenance, that they may be neither diverted from nor discouraged in their work of watching over souls.
2. This maintenance, though it should be moderate and such as may not through abundance occasion pride, luxury, and prodigality, yet should be liberal and creditable, such as may not only supply pinching necessities, but also that they may have wherewith to supply the necessities of the indigent, to educate their children so as they may sustain themselves and be profitable members both of Church and commonwealth.
3. The Churchs maintenance is only due unto such ministers as have abilities to preach, and are faithful and diligent labourers in the word. Those who are unfit or unwilling to preach should be removed from their charge, and not suffered to eat up the Churchs maintenance, feeding themselves and starving the souls of people committed to their charge.Fergusson.

Gal. 6:7-9. Deceived Sowers to the Flesh.

I. The solemnity of the apostles warning.He seems to intimate that such is the audacious wickedness of the human heart, that it has within it so many latent mazes of iniquity, that they might be self-deceived either as to their apprehensions of that which was right before God, or as to their own actual condition in His sight; and he tells them God is not mocked by this pretended service, that to Him all hearts are open, and that in impartial and discriminating arbitration He will render to every man according to his deeds. It is sad to be deceived in a friend, in our estimate of health, in our computation of property; but a mistake about the state of the soula veil folded about the heart so that it cannot see its own helplessness and perilthis is a state of which thought shudders to conceive, and to describe whose portentousness language has no words that are sufficiently appalling. There can be no peril more imminent than yours. The headlong rider through the darkness before whom the dizzy precipice yawns; the heedless traveller for whom in the bosky woodland the bandits lie in ambush, or upon whom from the jungles density the tiger waits to spring; the man who, gazing faintly upward, meets the cruel eye and lifted hand and flashing steel of his remorseless enemy; they of whose condition you can only poorly image, who in far dungeons and beneath the torture of a tyrants cruelty groan for a sight of friend or glimpse of day; all around whom perils thicken hopelessly, and to whom, with feet laden with the tidings of evil, the messengers of disaster come,how they move your sympathy, how you shudder as you dwell upon their danger, how you would fain stir yourselves into brave efforts for their rescue or their warning! Brethren, your own danger is more nearly encompassing and is more infinitely terrible.

II. The import of the apostles statement.We have largely the making or the marring of our own futurethat in the thoughts we harbour, in the words we speak and in the silent deeds which, beaded on Times string, are told by some recording angel as the story of our lives from year to year, we shape our character and therefore our destiny for ever. There are three special sowers to the fleshthe proud, the covetous, the ungodly. They are all spiritual sinssins of which human law takes no cognisance, and to which codes of earthly jurisprudence affix no scathing penalty. There is the greater need, therefore, that these spiritual sins should be disclosed in all their enormity and shown in their exceeding sinfulness and in their disastrous wages, in order that men may be left without excuse if they persist wilfully to believe a lie.W. M. Punshon.

Gal. 6:7-8. The Double Harvest.

I. Our present life is a moral trial for another to come.On till death is our seed-sowing; after death is the sure and universal harvest. On till death is our moral trial; after death is the life of judicial retribution, alike for the just and the unjust.

II. Human life has one or the other of two great characters, and will issue in one or the other of two great results.

1. They sow to the flesh who live under the influence of their natural inclinations and desires, pleasing only themselves and despising or neglecting the holy will of God. They live to the Spirit the whole current of whose being has been supernaturally reversed under the grace of the gospel.
2. The sowers to the Spirit live. And this true and proper life of man, in its maturity and full perfection, is the great and glorious reward which, by divine appointment, shall eventually crown the labours of the sowers to the Spirit. The sowers to the flesh sow seed which brings forth death. Even now their life is death in rudiment, and in the end they must reap it in its full and eternal development. Degraded existence, miserable existence, everlastingly degraded and miserable existence.

II. We are liable to delusions with respect to these great verities.All history and experience teem with illustrations of the spiritual spells and juggleries which men, prompted by the invisible potentate of evil, practise upon themselves, that so they may reduce to their convictions the sinfulness of sin, and may tone the booming of the great bell of Scripture menace down to the gentle whisper of an amiable reprimand.J. D. Geden.

On the Difference between sowing to the Flesh and to the Spirit.

I. The man who soweth to his flesh.It is to spend our lives in doing these works of the fleshto lay out our time, our thoughts, and our care in gratifying the vain, sensual, and selfish inclinations which the evil state of the heart naturally and continually puts forth. Broken health, loathsome diseases, ruined fortunes, disappointed wishes, soured tempers, infamy, and shame are among those things which usually come from walking after the flesh.

II. The man who soweth to the Spirit.It is to live under the guidance of Gods Holy Spirit, and in every part of our conduct to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. He enjoys even at present the fruit of his labour: inward peace and joy, and a hope full of immortality.Edward Cooper.

The Principle of the Spiritual Harvest.

I. The principle is this, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.There are two kinds of good possible to menone enjoyed by our animal being, the other felt and appreciated by our spirits. Reap what you have sown. If you sow the wind, do not complain if your harvest is the whirlwind. If you sow to the Spirit, be content with a spiritual reward, invisible, within, more life and higher life.

II. The two branches of the application of this principle.

1. Sowing to the flesh includes those who live in open riot.
2. Those who live in respectable worldliness.
3. Sowing to the Spirit, the harvest is life eternal.
4. The reward is not arbitrary but natural. The thing reaped is the very thing sown, multiplied a hundredfold. You have sown a seed of life, you reap life everlasting.F. W. Robertson.

Gal. 6:7. Sowing and Reaping in their bearing on the Formation of Individual Character.There are three plots in which every man is perpetually engaged in sowing and reapingin the plot of his thoughts, in the plot of his words, and in the plot of his deeds. And there is a storehouse into which the harvests from these three plots are being secretly but unmistakably garneredthe storehouse of individual character. The moral condition of the man to-day is the inevitable result of his thoughts, words, and deeds; his selfhood is rich or poor according to his sowing and reaping in these respective fields.

I. Whatsoever a man sows in thought that will he also reap in the formation, tone, and tendency of his intellectual and moral nature.

1. Vain thoughts. If we indolently sport with vain and foolish thoughts, they will inevitably produce a crop of the same kind. The mind will be garnished with flimsy and unprofitable fancies, inflated with a too conscious self-importance, and the outcome is heard in the loud laugh that proclaims the vacant mind, and seen in the pompous swagger of the intellectual fop (Pro. 13:16; Psa. 94:11).

2. Proud thoughts.The man dominated by pride is the most pitiable of objects. His pride of birth will not bear investigation into three generations, his pride of social status is snubbed in a way that leaves a wound that never heals, his pride of wealth smitten down by an unexpected turn of the ever-revolving wheel of fortune, and his pride of life withered by the passing breath of the great Destroyer. But he reaps what he sowed. He sowed the dragons teeth of proud and boastful thoughts, and the monster grew up and devoured him (Pro. 16:18).

3. Thoughts of sinful pleasure.If we allow the mind to dream of pleasures that are forbidden, the bloom of innocence is rubbed off never to be again replaced, the conscience is outraged till its voice is muffled and but feebly heard, one vile thought indulged breeds another that is viler still, and the moral atmosphere of the soul is poisoned. What he sows he reaps.

4. Good thoughts.The mind that aims at the loftiest style of thought, declining to tolerate the presence of a debasing sentiment, that keeps in check the wild and savage brood of evil thoughts ever seeking to overrun and defile the mind, that cultivates a chaste imagination and cherishes the exalted and unselfish charity that thinketh no evilreaps the result in an accession of intellectual vigour, in the creation of a nobler standard by which to judge of men and things, in the unbounded raptures of a refined and fertile imagination, and in the increase of power for doing the highest kind of work for God and humanity.

II. Whatsoever a man sows in words that shall he also reap.

1. Bitter and rancorous words. If a man studies how much of spiteful venom he can pack into a single sentence, how he can most skilfully whet and sharpen the edge of his words so as to make the deepest wound and raise the most violent storm of irritation and ill-feeling, unalterable as the course of nature the harvest is sure to come. Our unkind words come home to roost. The man offensive with his tongue is the devils bellows with which he blows up the sparks of contention and strife, and showers of the fiery embers are sure to fall back upon himself to scathe and destroy.

2. False words.If we deliberately and maliciously concoct a lie, and utter the same with whispered humbleness and hypocritical commiseration, as sure as there is justice in the heavens, the lie will come back with terrific recompense upon the head of the originator.

3. Kind and loving words.If we speak in the kindest spirit of others, especially in their absence, if we stand up for a friend unjustly maligned and defend him with dignity and faithfulness, if we study to avoid words which cannot but grieve and irritate, then as we have sown so shall we reapreap the tranquil satisfaction of conscious inoffensiveness, and, best of all, the divine approval. Heaven in sunshine will requite the kind.

III. Whatsoever a man sows in deeds that shall he also reap.

1. Cruel deeds. If we take a savage delight in torturing beast or bird or insect, if we plot how we can inflict the most exquisite pain on our fellow-man, if we make sport of the anguish and distress of others which we make no effort to relieve, we shall inevitably reap the harvestreap it in the embruting and degradation of our finer sensibilities, reap it in the tempest of rebellion and retaliation which those we outraged will launch upon us.

2. Selfish deeds.If we live for our own selfish gratification, indifferent to the rights and woes of others; if we surrender ourselves to a covetous spirit, living poor that we may die richas we sow we reap. The thing we lived to enjoy ceases to gratify, and our noblest sentiments are buried amid the rubbish of our own sordidness.

3. Generous and noble deeds.If we aim at the elevation of ourselves and others, if we seek to act on the highest level of righteousness and truth, if we are diligent, unwearied, and persistent in well-doing, then in due season we shall reap the harvestreap it in a heightened and expansive nobility of character, in an intensified influence and enlarged capacity for doing good, and in the eternal enrichment of the divine plaudit, Well done.

Be not Deceived.This phrase occurs several times as preface to warning, seeming to indicate thus that the subject of the warning is one about which we are specially liable to deception, and upon examination we find that observation justifies the presumption. We are thus guarded against any deception as to the following important practical truths:

I. The contaminating influence of evil associations (1Co. 15:33).

II. The personal responsibility of each for his own sin (Jas. 1:16).

III. Entrance into heaven conditioned on character (1Co. 6:9).

IV. Human destiny, once settled, irreversible (Gal. 6:7).British and Foreign Evangelical Review.

Gal. 6:8. Sowing to the Spirit.

I. The natural man has no desire for immortality.He has not been seized with the earnest and real wish for a future life; but he is entirely bound by this world in all his thoughts, aims, and wishes: he identifies life and existence altogether with this world, and life out of this world is a mere name to him. He is shut up within the walls of the flesh and within the circle of its own present aims and projects.

II. The spiritual man has a strong desire for immortality, and it is the beginning and foundation of the religious life he leads here. Every field of action becomes unimportant and insignificant compared with the simply doing good things, because in that simple exercise of goodness lies the preparation for eternity.

III. The natural and spiritual man are divided from each other by these distinctionsone has the desire for everlasting life, the other has not. The success of the one perishes with the corruptible life to which it belongs; the success of the other endures for all ages in the world to come.J. B. Mozley.

The Law of Retribution.

I. We see the justice of GodHis bounty and severity.His bounty in recompensing men above their deserts; His severity in punishing sinners according to their deserts.

II. This doctrine, that we shall drink such as we brew, reap such as we sow, and that men have degrees of felicity or misery answerable to their works, will make us more careful to avoid sin.

III. It serves as a comfort against inequality; whereas the wicked flourish and the godly live in contempt, the time shall come when every one shall reap even as he has sown.

IV. It crosses the conceit of those who promise to themselves an impunity from sin and immunity from all the judgments of God, notwithstanding they go on in their bad practices.Perkins.

Gal. 6:9. Against Weariness in Well-doing.

1. There is the prevailing temper of our nature, the love of easehorror of hard labour.
2. The reluctance and aversion are greater when the labour is enjoined by extraneous authoritythe imperative will of a foreign power.
3. In the service of God there is a good deal that does not seem for ourselves.
4. There is a principle of false humilitywhat signifies the little I can do?
5. The complaint of deficient co-operation.
6. In the cause of God the object and effect of well-doing are much less palpable than in some other provinces of action.
7. Yet the duty expressly prescribed is an absolute thing, independently of what men can foresee of its results.
8. There is the consciousness and pleasure of pleasing God.
9. What relief has man gained by yielding to the weariness?
10. Our grave accountableness is for making a diligent, patient, persevering use of the means God has actually given us.J. Foster.

Apathy one of our Trials.

1. Because, as in everything else, so in our spiritual growth, we are inevitably disappointed in much of our expectations.
2. The temptation to weariness is no sign at all that the man so tempted is not a true servant of God, though this very often is the first thought that enters the mind. It is no sin to feel weary; the sin is to be wearythat is, to let the feeling have its way and rule our conduct.
3. We expect a kind of fulness of satisfaction in Gods service which we do not get nearly so soon as we fancy that we shall.
4. You are quite mistaken in your belief that former prayers and former resolutions have been in vain and have produced no fruit because no fruit is visible.
5. In due season we shall find that it has been worth while to persevere in trying to serve Christ.Dr. Temple.

Well-doing.

I. Contrasted with fruitless profession.It is possible to have a clear notion of Christian truth and to talk well, and yet be idle and useless.

II. Contrasted with mistaken standards.It is easy to do as others are doing; but are they doing well? Practice must be guided by holy precepts.

III. Contrasted with wrong motives.Many are careful to do what is literally the right thing, but they do it with base motives. The correct motives arelove (2Co. 5:14), gratitude (Psa. 116:12), compassion (2Co. 5:11), desire to imitate Christ. All well-doing is humble and self-renouncing.The Lay Preacher.

Reap if we faint not.The image is agricultural.

I. Points of resemblance.

1. The material harvest is of two kindsweeds and golden grain.
2. The spiritual harvest is of two kindscorruption and everlasting life.
3. A combination of agencies.
(1) For the material harvest seed, soil, and elements work with the efforts of the farmer.
(2) For the spiritual harvest the seed of the word and the power of God must co-operate with mans agency.
4. As to difficulties.
(1) The season may be too wet, too dry, or too hot, or an army of insects may attack the growing grain.
(2) The foes of the spiritual harvest are the world, the flesh, and the devil.

II. Points of contrast.

1. The material harvest is annual, the spiritual eternal.
2. There are seasons so unfavourable that all the efforts of the farmer prove in vain; the spiritual harvest will never fail.
3. The drouth of one year may be made good by next years abundance, but eternity cannot compensate for what was lost in time.

III. Encouragements.

1. Our labour is not in vain in the Lord.
2. In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
3. The harvest will be glorious and eternal.Homiletic Monthly.

Gal. 6:10. On doing Good.

I. It is our duty to do good.This duty is enforced both by the words and example of Christ. Christianity not only requires its adherents to abstain from evil, but it demands their active service.

II. In doing good man attains to true nobility of character.The characters in history that exert the greatest fascination over us are not those of eminent statesmen or scientists, but those who have been distinguished for their philanthropy. We see in them a moral dignity that is unique. What reversals in human estimates of character will take place when the divine standard of greatness is appealed to!

III. In doing good we find true happiness.God has so constituted us that the exercise of our malevolent passions is productive of inward dissatisfaction, while the exercise of benevolent affections is attended with the greatest joy. There is real luxury in doing good.Preachers Magazine.

The Opportunity of Beneficence.

I. What a precious thing is opportunity.People talk about making time for this or that purpose. The time is really made for us, only we are too idle or too careless to use it for the proper end. Opportunities of usefulness are of frequent occurrence; they are wont to come and go with rapidity. They must be seized as you would lay hold of a passing friend in the street.

II. The whole of life is an opportunity.There is such a thing as a useful life, a true life, a noble life, though all lives must needs contain a multitude of neglected opportunities. As a series of opportunities its record is woefully imperfect. As one opportunity it is not utterly unworthy of the example of Christ. Let us have a thread of right intention running through life. Let us have an active purpose of benevolencea constant design of love. The continuous opportunity of life must be utilised, if the particular opportunities of life are to be turned to the best account.

III. The field of beneficence is very wide.Wherever men are found it is possible for us to do them good. We touch only a few persons, but each of these is in contact with others. To do great things with great powers is easy enough; but things so done may be undone so. The glory of Christianity has always been that it does great things with small powers, or powers that men think small; and the results of its work remain. Good work done by many hands is better than the extended philanthropy of an individual; for what is this but the effort of one man to make amends for the neglect of a thousand?

IV. Though all men have a claim on our Christian benevolence some are entitled to a special share.A man does not become a better citizen when he spurns his own family and neglects his duties at home. On the contrary, the noblest philanthropist is the most affectionate of fathers and husbands, and he who loves most widely in the world loves most intensely in his own house. So it will be with us in our Christian charity. We shall begin with those who are called by the common name and worship the common Lord, and from these we shall go on, with our energy not exhausted but rather refreshed, to the great mass of mankind.Edward C. Lefroy.

Doing Good.

I. We must do good with that only which is our own.We may not cut a large and liberal shive off another mans loaf; we may not steal from one to give to another, or deal unjustly with some that we may be merciful to others.

II. We must do good with cheerfulness and alacrity.What more free than gift; therefore we may not play the hucksters in doing good, for that blemishes the excellency of the gift.

III. We must so do good as that we do not disable ourselves for ever doing good.So begin to do good as that we may continue.

IV. We must do all the good we can within the compass of our calling, and hinder all the evil.

V. We must do good to all.

1. From the grounds of love and beneficence.
2. God is good and bountiful to all.
3. Do good to others as we would they should do to us.
4. Our profession and the reward we look for require us to do this.

VI. There is no possibility of doing good to others after this life.Perkins.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

2. Material support for the gospel 6:610

TEXT 6:68

(6) But let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. (7) Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (8) For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.

PARAPHRASE 6:68

6 Now let him who is instructed in the doctrines and precepts of the gospel, impart a share of all the good things he enjoys to the instructor. By this good work, ye may have matter of boasting in yourselves, Gal. 6:4.

7 To maintain them who teach you, is your duty. Therefore, do not deceive yourselves, God will not be mocked: For, as in the natural, so in the moral world, whatever a man soweth, that also he shall reap.
8 Therefore he who, by spending his time and wealth in gratifying his sensual desires, soweth into his own flesh, shall from such a sensual life reap corruption; the utter destruction of his soul and body. But he who, by spending his time and wealth in improving his mind, and in doing good to others, soweth into his spirit, shall, from such sowing into the spirit, assuredly reap life everlasting.

COMMENT 6:6

Let him that is taught in the word communicate

Let the one taught remunerate his teacher.

In financial aid.

Even so did the Lord ordain that they that proclaim the gospel should live of the gospel. 1Co. 9:14

I robbed other churches, taking wages of them that I might minister unto you. 2Co. 11:8

Some folk are against ministerial support.

Elder: Preachers are to sacrifice, therefore I am against a raise in salary.

Lady: Keep him humble Lord; we will do all we can to keep him poor.

In honor and reverence, and all other good things.

To talk ill of the preacher before your children is bad.

Talk ill of the preacher in the communityand it will help convince them of the hypocrisy of religion.

The teacher represents God and therefore should demand respect.

The student of the Word should learn to support the teacher of the Word. Cf. 1Ti. 5:17; 2Co. 9:7-8.

WORD STUDY 6:6

Communicate (koinoneokoin oh NEH oh). The person who is taught is literally to become a partner with the one who is teaching. He is to share fully with his teacher by receiving the good spiritual truths, and by giving good material things in return. This use of koinoneo with reference to financial support is also seen in Php. 4:15.

COMMENT 6:7

Be not deceived

This suggests you can do something about being deceived.

Man is a thinking individual.

He is a willing individual.

How are men deceived?

They are deceived by the devil. Satan . . . shall deceive the nations. Rev. 20:7-8

They are ensnared by the devil. Moreover he must have good testimony from them that are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. 1Ti. 3:7

And they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will. 2Ti. 2:26

The devil works lying wonders.

With all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness. 2Th. 2:9

Spirits of demons, working signs. Rev. 16:14

Satan assumes the form of an angel of light.

Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. 2Co. 11:14

Satan blinds men: The God of this world hath blinded the minds. 2Co. 4:4

Satan tempts men: The tempter had tempted you. 1Th. 3:5

Man deceives himself.

Each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Jas. 1:14

What can be done about it?

God knows how to deliver saints out of temptation.

2Pe. 2:9

1Co. 10:13

Heb. 2:18

Man can do something about it.

Man can resist in faith. Eph. 6:16 and 1Pe. 5:9-10

Man can watch against it. 1Pe. 5:8

Man can pray to be kept from it. Mat. 6:13; Mat. 26:41

God is not mocked

Mocked in the original verb meant to writhe the nostrilto scorn or sneer.

Man in false appearances only deceives himself.

Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, wanted to collect from Naaman for the healing of leprosy. 2Ki. 5:15-27

Ananias and Sapphira tried to deceive Peter. Act. 5:1-10

The mocking shall work in reverse.

The kings of the earth set themselves against Jehovah. Psa. 2:4

Like man disturbing an ant hill, the ants go in confusion.

Man drinks, carouses, rejects Christ, builds empiresthen floods, earthquakes, droughts, etc., come to take it all away.

for whatsoever a man soweth

A man can sow for the devil.

He can sow discord. Pro. 6:14; Pro. 6:19

He can sow strife. Pro. 16:28

He can sow iniquity. Pro. 22:8

He can sow to the flesh. Gal. 6:8

A man can sow for God.

I planted, Apollos watered. 1Co. 3:6

Soweth the word. Mar. 4:14

Seed to the sower. 2Co. 9:10 and Mat. 13:38

that shall he also reap

This is a certainty in life.

If he has sown for God, it will be bountiful.

He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. 2Co. 9:6

Open windows of heaven. Mal. 3:10

He that supplieth seed to the sower and bread for food, shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness.

2Co. 9:10

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 1Co. 15:44

If he has sown for the devil, it will be frightful.

For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. Hos. 8:7

They that . . . sow trouble, reap the same. Job. 4:8

Shall reap corruption. Gal. 6:8

We live in a dependable universe, therefore we are both blessed and warned.

COMMENT 6:8

reap corruption

The flesh is poor soil for a spiritual harvest.

It lusts against the spirit.

It is subject to death.

It is weakness.

Gratification of flesh alone will bring corruption.

The verbal noun suggests decay or the condition of being impaired, spoiled, wasted away. Col. 2:22; Rom. 8:21

It is used of corruption in our moral nature.

2Pe. 1:4

2Pe. 2:12-22

2Co. 7:2

1Ti. 6:5

It is used of the rotting away of the dead body.

Act. 2:27

Act. 2:31

Act. 13:34-37

It is the antithesis of our inheritance.

It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. 1Co. 15:42

Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 1Co. 15:50

shall reap eternal life

A new body will be fashioned for such people.

It is raised a spiritual body. 1Co. 15:42-54

Fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory. Php. 3:21

If the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have . . . a house not made with hands, eternal. 2Co. 5:1

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1Co. 15:22

New glory will be harvested.

Rom. 2:7

1Co. 15:49

1Co. 15:43

1Ti. 6:17-19

How do you sow to the Spirit?

By deeds to fellow men.

Rich in good works, ready to distribute. 1Ti. 6:17-18

The rich young ruler failed in this. Luk. 18:22

Jesus said, Ye have done it unto me. Mat. 25:45

By love for God.

Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Rom. 12:1-2

Lay not up for yourselves. Mat. 6:19

But seek ye first his kingdom. Mat. 6:33

By devotion to Jesus Christ.

STUDY QUESTIONS 6:68

929.

Who are the taught ones?

930.

What is meant by in the word?

931.

Does this refer to preachers, elders, and Bible School teachers?

932.

Does the word communicate mean to hold conversation here?

933.

What does it mean?

934.

Does it mean good financial support?

935.

Prove by the Scriptures that teachers and preachers are to be supported financially.

936.

Did Paul receive financial help?

937.

Was this always so?

938.

What is included in the expression all good things?

939.

Name some good things that a preacher or teacher might appreciate most.

940.

Can man fool God?

941.

Can man fool himself into thinking he can?

942.

How are men deceived?

943.

What methods does the devil use?

944.

Does God do anything about our temptations?

945.

How can man resist the devils cunning?

946.

What does the word mock mean?

947.

What actually takes place when a man tries to mock God?

948.

What is meant by sowing?

949.

How does a man sow evil?

950.

What kind of evil is it possible to sow?

951.

Describe sowing good for God.

952.

Does this verse speak uncertainly?

953.

Is a harvest assured regardless of how we sow?

954.

Who will supply us good seed to sow?

955.

Is the flesh good or bad soil for sowing?

956.

What will sowing to the flesh bring?

957.

Define corruption.

958.

Give verses that teach mans corruption.

959.

Explain spiritual sowing.

960.

When do we do spiritual planting?

961.

Is there a second chance?

962.

What is included in the spiritual reaping?

963.

What will happen to the body that is buried, if we are spiritual?

964.

What chapter in Corinthians is given over to the subject of the resurrection?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(6) Him that is taught in the word.He who receives instruction in the truths of the gospel. Even at this early date there seems to have been a more or less organised system of instruction in the Church. Teaching was regarded as a separate function, though those who took part in it do not seem as yet to have formed a separate class. See Act. 13:1; Rom. 12:7; 1Co. 12:28-29; Eph. 4:11; Jas. 3:1 (masters should be rather teachers). The teacher was dependent on the alms of his scholars.

Communicate . . . in all good things.Let him impart or share with his teacher in all those temporal goods with which God has blessed him. The teacher would not receive any settled and regular payment, but the scholar would make him presentsmany of them, probably, in kindso as to relieve him from the care of providing for his own livelihood, and so give him more leisure for his work of teaching.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(6-10) Special exhortation to liberality in the support of teachers, grounded upon the fact that we shall all receive, in the harvest at the end of the world, according as we have sown during the time of our probation here. The self-indulgent will find the flesh that he has indulged fall to dissolution, and there will be an end. On the other hand, he who in all his actions has sought the approval of the Spirit shall be rewarded with everlasting life. The same rule holds good for every kind of beneficence. Let us do what good we can, whenever an opportunity is given us, especially towards our fellow Christians.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

b. Mutual co-operation of teacher and Church in solemnly responsible and unwearied good-doing, Gal 6:6-10 .

6. Communicate Co-operate, share with. From the idea of carrying common burdens upon common shoulders, between Church brethren, the apostle passes to a common co-operation between teachers, preachers, and people in all good doings. With Meyer, against the general run of commentators, we agree that good things refers, not to temporal maintenance, but to Christian and Churchly labours. Leave not Christian activities to ministers and teachers alone. Every one is a responsible labourer in the probationary field. Let all be at work, and always at it.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But let him who is taught in the word communicate to him who teaches in all good things.’

In thinking of the load that each man must carry as he seeks to help others, Paul’s thoughts turn to the burdens borne especially by those who ministered the word in those days, for it was often difficult for such to earn a living (not all were tentmakers). Those who are well taught in the word by others should therefore be willing to share all good things with those who do the teaching, thus helping them with their burden.

Perhaps this verse should be above the doors of some churches. Ministers should not have to just ‘make do’ when their congregations thrive. They should share in the good things that their congregations enjoy, while they themselves share with their congregations the good things that they themselves have learned.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The apostle urges unselfish service:

v. 6. Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

v. 7. Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

v. 8. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

v. 9. And let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

v. 10. As we have, therefore, opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

These single admonitions are not brought in as abruptly as might appear at first glance. Paul is still speaking of the life in the Spirit, which is opposed to all envious grudging. And he here voices a thought which he has emphasized also elsewhere: Let him that is taught in the Word communicate to him that teaches in all good things. He that is taught in the Word, either in the more restricted private and catechetical discussion or in the public instruction, in which the teacher expounds the Word of God before all, should communicate to, literally go shares with, the one that does the teaching, in all good things, not only in temporal support, but in all other benefits as well. They that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel, 1Co 9:14. Thus the ministers, on their part, do not degrade their ministry to a mere business, especially since it is impossible to speak of adequate compensation in their case, and the parishioners, on their part, do not regard the money paid toward the minister’s support as charity, but as the proper sharing of goods demanded by God.

Solemnly the warning sounds in this connection: Do not let yourselves be deceived; God will not be sneered at. For what a man sows, this he also reaps. He that sows on his own flesh will harvest from the flesh destruction; he that sows to the Spirit of the Spirit will harvest everlasting life. In connection with the obligation of gratitude which he has enjoined upon them, the apostle warns the Galatian Christians against harboring or entertaining any erroneous thoughts. For it is nothing but self-delusion if a person tries to convince himself that he believes in Christ and can comfort himself with regard to the mercy of God and the forgiveness of sins, and yet permits his flesh to rule with all its passions and evil lusts, disregarding all duties which the law of love imposes. For it is impossible to sneer at God with impunity. He will not be disregarded and despised. Although our gracious and merciful Father, He is also the holy and righteous God, whose vengeance will find all the workers of iniquity. If a person, therefore, reaps God’s wrath and displeasure, temporal death, and eternal damnation, he has no one to blame but himself, since he sowed on his own flesh, since he served the lusts of his own evil nature. His harvest agrees with his sowing. Altogether different is the case of him that sows to the Spirit, that takes the proper care of the new man wrought in him through regeneration, that strives more and more to put on the new man, who after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Such a person will enjoy the harvest of eternal life. By the grace of God the present spiritual life will mature into the life of glory and in glory, where there is fullness of joy at the right hand of God forevermore. What an incentive to every Christian to walk in the Spirit and thus to obtain this harvest of joy!

Unwearied efforts should therefore characterize the life of the Christians, as the apostle writes: But in well-doing let us not become weary; for at the proper season we shall harvest if we do not become faint. In well doing we should not become weary, which not only includes the manifold deeds of charity, by which we have an opportunity to assist our neighbor in spiritual and temporal distress, but refers to the entire spiritual life of the Christian. In this the Christians should not become weary; they should not lose courage; they should not permit the obstacles to wear them out. Only he that remains faithful to the end, the same shall be saved. As soon as our spirit grows weary, then our body will also become faint. This we cannot afford to permit, for the harvest is promised only to such as do not become weary and faint. The harvest of satisfaction and joy in this world may still be connected with much labor and exertion, but if we persist to the end, without growing faint, our reward will be unspeakable fullness of bliss, an everlasting harvest of joy in the presence of our Lord and Savior.

The apostle concludes his admonition with another urgent call: Now, then, as we have time, opportunity, let us do good to all men, but most of all to them that are of the household of faith. Here and now, in proportion to the opportunity offered and afforded to us on all sides, we can and should do good. Now is the chance of the Christians, the most opportune time for sowing deeds of kindness. We do not know how soon the Day of Judgment may be coming. We should practice deeds of love toward our neighbor, we should be of assistance to him, no matter whether the trouble which is bothering him be of the body or of the spirit, our neighbor in this case being every person that is in need of our help, whether Jew or Gentile, friend or enemy, known or unknown, grateful or ungrateful. Only one distinction should we observe; we should give the preference to those that are of the household of faith. Our companions in faith, our fellow-Christians, are united with us by the most intimate bonds of fellowship. To their wants and needs we should, therefore, attend first of all, to them we should give assistance by preference. That is the great duty which our living and walking in the Spirit places upon us.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Gal 6:6. St. Paul having laid some restraint upon the authority and forwardness of the teachers and leading men among them, who were, as it seems, more ready to impose what they ought not on the Galatians, than to keep them forward in the practice of gospel obedience, he here takes care of them in respect of their maintenance; and exhorts the Galatians to liberality towards them, and in general towards all men, especially Christians, Gal 6:6-10. The word communicate here signifies to give liberally. All good things may imply, not only maintenance and subsistence, but likewise other branches of benevolence and respect.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Gal 6:6 . In contrast to the referring of every one to himself (Gal 6:4-5 ), there is now, by the , which is therefore placed emphatically (in opposition to Hofmann) at the beginning, presented a fellowship of special importance to a man’s own perfection, which he must maintain: Fellowship, on the other hand, let him who is being instructed in the doctrine ( , in the gospel; comp. 1Th 1:6 ; Phi 1:14 ) have with the instructor [252] in all good (Gal 6:10 ), that is, let the disciple make common cause (endeavour and action) with his teacher in everything that is morally good. So, following Marcion (?) (in Jerome) and Lyra, in modern times Aug. Herm. Franke (in Wolf), who, however, improperly connects with , Hennicke, de nexu loci Gal. vi. 1 10, Lips. 1788; Mynster, kl. theol. Schr . p. 70, Matthies, Schott, Keerl, Diss. de Gal . vi. 1 10, Heidelb. 1834, Trana, Jatho, Vmel, Matthias; also not disapproved by Winer. Usually, however (as by Winer, Rckert, Usteri, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Wieseler, Hofmann, Reithmayr, and others), there is found in the words a summons to liberality towards the teachers , so that is taken as referring to the communication of everything good (Ewald), or more definitely, of all earthly good things (“in omni facultatum genere, ut usu venit,” Bengel), or of good things of every hind (Ellicott, Hofmann); and is taken either transitively (so usually, also by Ewald), as if the word were equivalent to (as to the distinction between the two, see especially Thuc. i. 39. 3): communicet (which, however, cannot be conclusively established in the N.T., not even in Rom 12:13 ; and in the passages from Greek authors in Fritzsche, ad Rom . III. p. 81, and Bremi, ad Aeschin . p. 317, Goth, it is to be referred to the idea: “ to share with any one ”), or intransitively (so Usteri, de Wette, Wieseler): “ let him stand in fellowship ,” namely by communication, or in the sense of the participation in the teacher, which is perfected . (Hofmann, comparing Rom 15:27 ). But against the whole of this interpretation may be urged: (1) the singular want of connection of such a summons, not merely with what goes before, [253] but also with what follows, [254] wherein Paul inculcates Christian morality generally. (2) Since in Gal 6:1-5 moral faultiness was the point in question, the reference which most naturally suggests itself for is a reference to moral good. (3) At the conclusion of this whole section in Gal 6:10 , . . ., is nothing else than the morally good. (4) The requirement itself, to communicate with the teacher in all good things , would, without more precise definition (Luther, 1538: Paul desires simply, “ ut liberaliter eos alant, quantum satis est ad vitam commode tuendam ,” an idea which is not suggested in the passage), be so indeterminate and, even under the point of view of the possession as common property, Act 4:32 (de Wette), which we do not meet with in Paul’s writings, so little to be justified, that we cannot venture to attribute it thus thrown out without any defining limitation to the apostle, least of all in a letter addressed to churches in which misinterpretations and misuse on the part of antagonistic teachers were to he apprehended. Through the stress laid by Wieseler on the spiritual counter-service of the teacher (comp. also Hofmann), the expression , seeing that it must always involve that which is to be given by the disciples to their teacher, is by no means reduced to its just measure (the bodily maintenance as recompense for the received, 1Co 9:11 ; Phi 4:15 ); whilst Ewald’s interpretation, “communication in all good things ,” [255] cannot be linguistically vindicated either for . or for (= , according to Sprachl . p. 484 f.). Paul would have said perhaps: . . . . , or something similar in correct Greek. The objection raised against our interpretation (see Rckert, Usteri, Hilgenfeld, Wieseler), that it is difficult to see why this particular relation of disciple and teacher should be brought into prominence, is obviated by the consideration that this very relation had been much disturbed among the Galatians by the influence of the pseudo-apostles (Gal 4:17 ), and this disturbance could not but be in the highest degree an obstacle to the success of their common moral effort and life. But in reference to de Wette’s objection that , instead of , is a strange expression, it must be observed that Paul wished to express not at all the idea of , but only that of the Christian between disciple and teacher. The disciple is not to leave the sphere of the morally good to the teacher alone, and on his own part to busy himself in other interests and follow other ways; but he is to strive and work in common with his teacher in the same sphere. In this view, the expression is (in opposition to Hofmann’s objection) neither too wide nor too narrow. Not too wide, because the sphere of moral good is one and the same for teachers and learners, and it is only the concrete application which is different. Not too narrow, because moral fellowship in Christian church-life finds its most effective lever in the fact that learner and teacher go hand in hand in all that is good.

] Comp. Act 18:25 . It is self-evident that Paul means only the relation to true, Pauline teachers.

] the sphere, in which common cause is made. Comp. Mat 23:30 . A classical writer would say, (Heb 2:14 ; Plat. Rep . p. 464 A; Soph. Trach . 543), or (Plat. Rep . p. 453 A), or even . (Polyb. xxxi. 26. 6). On the plural , as applied to moral good, comp. Joh 5:29 ; Mat 12:35 ; Sir 11:31 ; Sir 17:7 ; Sir 39:4 ; Sir 13:25 ; and frequently in Greek authors. Paul might also have written (Col 1:10 ); but is more comprehensive. The dative . is the dativus communionis everywhere common (Dem. 142, ult . 789. 2).

[252] The question, whether the persons here meant were permanent teachers of the church, or itinerant evangelists, is to be answered by saying that neither of these two kinds of teachers is excluded. For although at that time there were no specially instituted except the presbyters (see on Eph 4:11 ), there were nevertheless members of the church endowed with the , who devoted themselves to the function of continuous instruction in their churches. Rom 12:7 .

[253] The connection with what goes before might be dispensed with , for Paul might (through ) have passed on to a fresh subject. Winer, indeed, conceives the connection to be: “cum vv. 4, 5 ea tetigisset, quae priva sibi quisque habere debeat, nunc ad haec descendere, quae cum aliis communicanda sunt” (comp. Erasmus, Paraphr .). But, with the precept of liberality towards teachers, so entirely alien to what goes before, this connection appears forced; and it would be better to forego any connecting link with what precedes (Rckert) than to bring out an illogical relation of the contrast. De Wette discovers a satisfactory connection with vv. 1 5 in the circumstance that there, as here, the apostle has in view defects of Christian social life. This, however, is to specify not a connection, but merely a logical category. According to Ewald, the previous counsels are to be conceived as for the most part addressed to the Pauline teachers of the Galatians, and Paul therefore now adds a word as to the correct behaviour of the non-teachers also. But the former idea is assumed without ground in the text, which speaks quite generally . According to Wieseler the conception is, that the care for worldly maintenance was a species of the (ver. 2), which the readers were to relieve them of in return for their being instructed in the word. But those are necessarily of a moral nature, burdens of guilt . According to Hofmann, Paul has previously exhorted every one to serve his neighbour with that which he is , and now exhorts every one to employ that which he possesses , as his Christian position requires. A scheme of thought purely artificial, and gratuitously introduced.

[254] The sequel down to ver. 10 is indeed referred by Luther (most consistently in 1538) and others, including Olshausen and de Wette, with more or with less (Koppe, de Wette, Hilgenfeld) consistency, to the behaviour towards the teachers , by the despising of whom God is mocked, the support of whom is a sowing of seed for spiritual objects, etc. But looking at the general nature of the following instructions, which there is not a word to limit, how arbitrary and forced is this view! Not less far-fetched and forced is the explanation of Hofmann, who considers that, because by means of the . . . the teacher is enabled to attend to his own business, Paul in vv. 7 ff. warns against the erroneous opinion that people might, without danger to the soul, deal lightly with that . . .; that by means of this people devote that which they possess to the Spirit, etc.

[255] Comp. Grotius: “ per omnes res bonas , i. e. non per alimenta tantum, sed et alia obsequia et officia.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

(6) Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. (7) Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (8) For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (9) And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (10) As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Within this paragraph, the Apostle hath drawn the outlines of a spiritual man, to distinguish him from one that is wholly carnal. And he makes use of a figure, well known among men, in order to explain. No one that sowed in the earth one kind of grain, ever expected to reap another. And, by a like reasoning, the opposite qualities of flesh and spirit, can never be expected to arise, but as each is sown. The carnal man, in the seed-time of life sowing to the flesh, cannot look forward to the harvest, with an hope to reap spiritually. God is not mocked. Men may deceive themselves, but not the Lord. There will be an exact product, as the man is found carnal or spiritual. Carnal in himself. Spiritual in CHRIST.

But while these are fixed, and unalterable principles, and are here brought forth by the Apostle as an appeal to the common sense of mankind; it should be rightly considered, that Paul is not speaking in relation to the work of God the Spirit on the souls of the regenerate, as though it was their sowing, or hereafter their reaping, will be brought forth from their labors. All is of grace. And, Paul, in this very scripture, so explains it. The reaping of the Lord’s people in the end, is of the Lord; for he saith, of the Spirit (not of his own spirit, but God the Holy Ghost) he shall reap life everlasting. Reader! it is very blessed to trace our mercies always to their source. And the Apostle elsewhere urgeth diligence, from this very principle. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Phi 2:12-13 .

The same train of argument ariseth out of the patience, which the Apostle recommends, in well doing. What well-doing is there of the Child of God, for which he is to expect a reward. Alas! there is nothing, there can be nothing of the creature, for which recompense can be demanded. Sweet are the words of Jesus to this effect, When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded to you, say, we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do. Luk 17:10 . Reader! it is good to lay low at the feet of Jesus, under the deep conviction, that all the good that is done upon earth, the Lord doeth it himself. But the Apostle’s train of argument is, that the Lord’s people should never be weary, nor faint in their minds; at any exercises they meet with, in the present time-state of their existence. Christ is their portion. And in due season, on his account, and for his sake alone, they will reap the blessed fruits of that inheritance, to which, as his people, they are begotten, by his soul-travail, blood-shedding, and righteousness. The expression is not unsimilar to what is said, Heb 6:12 : Be ye not slothful, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

Ver. 6. Communicate unto him ] Not sharing as an alms, but sharing as a right; seePhm 1:17Phm 1:17 ; as wages for his work, Mar 6:8 ; as pay for his pains,1Co 9:141Co 9:14 . See Trapp on “ 1Co 9:14 “

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

6 10 .] Exhortation (in pursuance of the command in Gal 6:2 , see below), to liberality towards their teachers, and to beneficence in general .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

6 .] most likely intransitive, as there does not appear to be an instance of its transitive use in the N. T. (certainly not Rom 12:13 ). But the two senses come nearly to the same: he who shares in the necessities of the saints, can only do so by making that necessity partly his own, i.e., by depriving himself to that extent, and communicating to them. On . and , see Suicer, Thes. sub voce. This meaning, of ‘ giving oral instruction ,’ is confined to later Greek: see Lidd. and Scott.

, as bringing out a contrast to the individuality of the last verse.

, in its very usual sense of the Gospel , the word of life . It is the accusative of reference or of second government, after , as in Act 18:25 .

. . ] in all good things : the things of this life mainly, as the context shews. Nor does this meaning produce an abrupt break between Gal 6:5-6 ; Gal 6:6-7 , as Meyer (who understands of moral good; ‘ share with your teachers in all virtues :’ i.e. ‘ imitate their virtues ’) maintains. From the mention of bearing one another’s burdens, he naturally passes to one way, and one case, in which those burdens may be borne viz. by relieving the necessities of their ministers (thus almost all Commentators); and then,

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Gal 6:6 . Let him that is taught share with him that teacheth . The word contains the key to the true meaning of this verse. Our versions understand it here, and in Rom 12:13 , Phi 4:15 , in the sense of communicating to others; but I can find no warrant for this in Greek usage. In Rom 15:27 it signifies distinctly to receive a share, and elsewhere to become a partner ( ) and share in common with others ( 1Ti 5:22 , 1Pe 4:13 , 2Jn 1:11 , Heb 2:14 ). Here in like manner it enjoins upon the leaders of the Churches the duty of admitting all the members to participation in any spiritual blessings they enjoy. It continues, in fact, the protest against the arrogant pretensions and selfish exclusiveness of Judaising leaders. . It is impossible to restrict this word to mere worldly goods, except where the language of the context suggests or warrants such a restriction, as is the case in Luk 12:18 ; Luk 16:25 . The language here points to the blessings of Christian faith and doctrine. . Oral teaching is specified because it was the only form of instruction then existing in the Churches.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gal 6:6-10

6The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him. 7Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. 10So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

Gal 6:6 “the word” This is from the same root as “Word” in Joh 1:1, referring to Jesus. The “word” is the gospel of and about Jesus. Paul uses a variety of ways to refer to this “word.”

1. “the word of God” 1Co 14:36; 2Co 2:17; 2Co 4:2; Php 1:14; Col 3:16; 1Th 2:13

2. “the word of the Lord” 1Th 1:8; 2Th 3:1

3. the word Gal 6:6; 1Th 1:6; Col 4:3; 2Ti 4:2

“is to share” This is another present active imperative which relates either to

1. Gal 6:1-5, a call on the mature to help weaker Christians

2. Gal 6:7-10, a description of the law of spiritual sowing and reaping (see note at Gal 6:7)

Those who are taught are under the spiritual responsibility to share in the ministry of those who teach them (cf. Luk 10:7; Rom 15:27; 1Co 9:9-14). This is a general principle, and although Paul did not personally take advantage of personal remuneration, he advocated it for other ministers. The English word “catechism” is derived from the Greek [katech] translated as “taught” and “teaches” which are found in this verse.

“good things” “Good things” is purposefully ambiguous, referring to physical needs, spiritual needs or both. The obvious truth is that those who are being taught should be grateful and responsive. Exactly how this verse relates to the false teachers is uncertain. Paul could have been referring to himself and the Gentile contribution for Jerusalem.

“with the one who teaches him” The teacher (“the one who teaches”) refers either to

1. the spiritual gift of teaching as in Act 13:1 and 1Co 12:28

2. a teacher in the local congregation who trained new believers and children

3. one who taught the entire congregation the implications of the teachings of the Apostles as they applied to their daily lives, as in pastor/teacher of Eph 4:11

This last option would be similar to the OT task of the local Levites and, later, professional scribes.

Gal 6:7 “Do not be deceived” This is a present passive imperative with a negative particle which usually means to stop an act which was already in process. They were already being deceived (cf. 1Co 6:9; 1Co 15:33; 2Th 2:3; Jas 1:16).

“God is not mocked” This verb means “to turn one’s nose up at” something or someone. This may refer to those who are called to minister as God’s representatives, that is, the teachers of Gal 6:6. To scoff at Christian ministers is, in a sense, to scoff at God. Jesus, in Mat 10:42; Mat 25:40, mentioned that when we help others in His name we are helping Him. This is the same truth but from the opposite direction. However, how these verses relate to one another is uncertain. This may be a general proverb connected with “sowing and reaping” applied in a figurative sense.

This verse may relate to Gal 6:8-10 and not to Gal 6:6 at all. This is a moral universe. We do not so much break God’s laws as much as we break ourselves on God’s laws. Be it known, believer or unbeliever, we reap what we sow. Sin always runs its course, even in the life of believers. Wild oats are very, very expensiveso, too, is self-centered sowing!

“for whatever a man sows” This is a spiritual principle. God is ethical-moral and so is His creation. Humans break themselves on God’s standards. We reap what we sow. This is true for believers (but does not affect salvation) and unbelievers (cf. Job 34:11; Psa 28:4; Psa 62:12; Pro 24:12; Ecc 12:14; Jer 17:10; Jer 32:19; Mat 16:27; Mat 25:31-46; Rom 2:6; Rom 14:12; 1Co 3:8; 2Co 5:10; Gal 6:7-10; 2Ti 4:14; 1Pe 1:17; Rev 2:23; Rev 20:12; Rev 22:12).

Gal 6:8 “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption” This refers to the two basic approaches of being right with God (cf. Gal 5:13; Gal 5:16-17), human effort (cf. Rom 8:6-8; Rom 8:13) and free grace (cf. Rom 8:2-4; Rom 8:6; Rom 8:12-14).

“corruption” See Special Topic following.

SPECIAL TOPIC: DESTROY, RUIN, CORRUPT (PHTHEIR)

“eternal life” The concept of eternal life which is found in Gal 6:8 is from the Greek word zo. It is used particularly by John to refer to resurrection life, the life of the new age (cf. Rom 5:21; Rom 6:22-23; Tit 1:2; Tit 3:7). It has the same implication here. Gal 6:8-10 show the consequences of our sowing and reaping.

Gal 6:9 “Let us not lose heart in doing good” This is literally “to despair” or “to lose heart” (NEGATED PRESENT ACTIVE SUBJUNCTIVE cf. Luk 18:1; 2Th 3:13; 2Co 4:1; 2Co 4:16; Heb 12:3.) Often Christians grow weary of the very things that they have been called to do.

“for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” Notice the conditional element (not conditional sentence). It is conditioned on our continued faith response. Also, note the element of God’s sovereign timing in our lives. We do not understand why things happen as they do, but because we believe in the sovereignty of God and the specific demands of the free gospel, we direct our lives to certain ways of service and giving. See Special Topic on Perseverance at Gal 3:4.

Gal 6:10 “So then, while we have opportunity” Believers must continue to watch for opportunities to live out their faith in Christ (cf. Eph 5:15-21; Col 4:2-6). This phrase will refer to

1. opportunities in daily like

2. before persecution comes

3. before the Second Coming

This may be an allusion to Psa 69:13 or Isa 49:8 (cf. 2Co 6:2).

“let us do good” This is a present middle (deponent) subjunctive. Paul states with conviction that our standing with God does not come by human effort, but he is equally emphatic that once we know God we should live a life of strenuous service (i.e., Tit 3:8; Tit 3:14). These twin truths are found in Eph 2:8-9 and then Gal 6:10. We are not saved by good works, but we are most definitely saved unto good works.

“to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” Notice that our love is meant for all people for there is always a view toward evangelism in all of our actions (cf. Mat 28:19-20; Luk 24:47; Joh 20:31; Act 1:8; 1Co 9:19-23; 1Pe 3:15). However, our primary focus, as far as fellowship, is on the members of the family of God. This is not denominationally focused for we are to take a person at his word that he has trusted in Christ. Once he has made that confession we are to serve him as Christ served us.

I very much like Gordon Fee’s insight in to the corporate nature of this book, not the typical western individual emphasis. This book is about the Spirit-filled life of the community of faith and beyond (cf. To What End Exegesis?, p. 163).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

taught. Greek. katecheo. See Luk 1:4.

in. Omit.

word. Greek. logos. App-121.

communicate = share with. Greek. koinoneo. Rom 12:13 (distributing).

unto = to.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

6-10.] Exhortation (in pursuance of the command in Gal 6:2, see below), to liberality towards their teachers, and to beneficence in general.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Gal 6:6-7. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Paul puts that in connection with the support of those who are teachers of the truth, and I have sometimes thought that, in certain churches where Gods ministers have been starved, it was not very wonderful that the people should be starved, too. They thought so little about the pastor that they left him in need, so it was not strange that, as they sowed little, they reaped little. One of these misers said that his religion did not cost him more than a shilling a year, and somebody replied that he thought it was a shilling wasted on a bad thing, for his poor religion was not worth even that small amount.

Gal 6:8. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption;

He shall reap what flesh turns to in due time: he shall of the flesh reap corruption. What is the end of flesh? The fairest flesh, that ever was moulded from the most beauteous form, ends in corruption; and if we live for the flesh, and sow to it, we shall reap corruption.

Gal 6:8. But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.

He shall reap what the Spirit really is, and what the Spirit really generates: life everlasting. Of course, if a man sows tares, he reaps tares. If he sows wheat, he reaps wheat. If we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption. If we sow to the Spirit, we shall reap life everlasting.

Gal 6:9. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

It is a pity to faint just when the time is coming to reap; so, sow on, brother and sister, sow on!

Gal 6:10. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Extend your love, your charity, to all mankind; but let the center of that circle be in the home where God has placed you, in the home of his people: especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Gal 6:11. Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.

I suppose that he meant, See what big characters I have made. My eyes are weak, and so, when I do write a letter, says Paul, in the dimness of this dungeon, with my poor weak eyes, and my hands fettered, I have to write text-hand, and give it to you in large letters. Well, he says, then carry it out in big letters. You see with what large letters I have written to you, now emphasize it all, take it as emphatic, and carry it out with great diligence. As I have written this with mine own hand, and not used an amanuensis, I beseech you to pay the more attention to it, you Galatians, who seem to be so bewitched that, to deliver you from false doctrine, and an evil spirit, I would even write a letter with my own blood if it were needful.

Gal 6:12-13. As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.

See, say they, these Gentiles. We have converted them, and we have got them circumcised. Is not that a wonderful thing? No, not at all, for he says,

Gal 6:14. But God foretold that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

I have ceased to care, says Paul, about glorying in men, and making other people glory in my converts. The world is dead to me, and I to it.

Gal 6:15-17. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

I have the marks of the whips upon my body. I am the branded slave of Jesus Christ. There is no getting the marks out of me. I cannot run away. I cannot deny that he is my Master and my Owner: I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Gal 6:18. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.

And that is our benediction to you. The Lord fulfill it to each one of you!

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Gal 6:6. , but let him communicate) [The connection is this:] Paul means to say, When I said [Every man shall bear] his own burden, that should not be turned to an argument for the diminution of your liberality. , just in the same way as the Latin participo, includes the idea both of receiving and giving a share; here, the idea is of giving, as in Php 4:15, very elegantly.- , in all good things) in every kind of resources, as the occasion may require [as the case may be].

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Gal 6:6

But let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.-Those who are taught are under obligations to help the teacher by sharing with him all good things. The necessity of helping those who teach is frequently taught in the Scriptures. Those earthly things men generally need are designated and are designated goods or good things. (Luk 12:19; Luk 16:25). In all these, whether money, or food, or clothing, and such necessary things, the taught are to communicate with faithful teachers, share with them, and share with their reward. [This does not exclude spiritual fellowship. The true teacher counts this far more sacred, and has this interest far more at heart than the temporal. He labors for the unity and spiritual development of the church; he strives to secure the mutual sympathy and cooperation of the church in every good word and deed. He must have the sympathy of the whole body in the work or his joy will be little and the success scant indeed. The teaching of the word of God is designed to awaken this sympathetic response, which takes expression in the rendering of whatever help the gifts and means of the taught and the needs for which occasion calls. When the sympathetic union that God requires is maintained between the taught and the teacher, the matter of the temporal support of the teacher comes in as a necessary detail to be generously and prudently arranged, but which will not be felt on either side as a burden or a difficulty. Everything depends on the fellowship of the Spirit, on the strength of the bond of love that knits together the members of the body of Christ.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Chapter 34

Sowing in the Spirit

Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Gal 6:6-10

Paul continues to give us instructions about what it is to walk in the Spirit. Just as the Lord Jesus went about doing good (Act 10:38), those who walk in the Spirit, that is to say, all who follow him, all who are his disciples, go through this world doing good (Eph 2:10). Those who sow to the flesh (who live after the flesh) shall reap eternal woe. And those who sow to the Spirit (who live after the Spirit) shall reap life eternal in Christ (Rom 8:5-6; Gal 6:8). Of course, Paul is not telling us that we are justified, sanctified, or even that we gain or lose reward in heaven upon the basis of our works. He is simply telling us that believers are people whose faith in Christ is manifest by their works. Let us ever trace our mercies to their Source. It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Php 2:13).

Pastoral Support

Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things (Gal 6:6). Here Paul tells us that those who teach the Word of God (pastors of local churches, missionaries, and evangelists) are to be supported financially by those who profit from their labors. The doctor who ministers to your bodily health, the policeman who protects you, the carpenter who builds an addition on your house, the mechanic who changes the oil in your car, and the neighborhood boy who mows your lawn for you are all compensated according to their service. Even so, the man who studies the Word, seeks a message for your soul from God, prays for you and teaches you the Word of God (the most important service) is to share in your material substance. Gospel preachers are to be supported and maintained in their livelihood by the voluntary generosity of those for whom they labor. This is one of the clearest statements in the Bible about the support of gospel preachers. All who profit from the preaching of the gospel are expected to give of their means for the support of those who preach the gospel. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

The fact is every local church needs money to operate. Buildings must be erected. Bills must be paid. Office supplies must be purchased. Equipment must be maintained and salaries must be paid. We are to preach the gospel freely to all men, seeking nothing in return; but in order for us to preach the gospel freely, someone has to pay for it. How is the work of the ministry to be maintained? How should local churches raise the money needed to support pastors, missionaries, and various works for the furtherance of the gospel? These questions need to be answered plainly and frankly from the Word of God.

There is no scarcity of material in the Holy Scriptures regarding the financial support of the gospel ministry. It is a subject that appears again and again throughout the Bible. Under the Mosaic economy of the Old Testament those who ministered about the holy things of divine service lived upon the things of the temple. Those who served the altar were partakers of the altar (1Co 9:13). God prescribed by law that the priesthood, the children of Levi, should receive a tenth of all the possessions of the children of Israel, a tenth of their money, property, crops, and herds, for their service in the tabernacle of the congregation. The Jews were required to pay a tithe to be used exclusively for the financial support of the ministry of the Levitical priesthood (Num 18:21). Failure to do so, for any reason, was regarded as robbing God himself (Mal 3:8-9).

However, we are not under the law today. Gods people are no more required to pay a tithe in this gospel age than we are required to keep the sabbath day, or observe the Passover (Col 2:16-23). We are free from the law. A. D. Muse, the late pastor of Hearts Harbor Tabernacle in Louisville, Kentucky, used to say, If you tithe, youre under the law. And if you dont tithe, youre an outlaw. In other words, the person who just pays his tithe is a mere legalist, and anyone who does not do that much is an antinomian. Anyone who uses his freedom from the law as an excuse for being a niggardly miser and selfishly refuses to give of his means for the support of the gospel of Christ is, I fear, without grace. Gods people give. They give generously, and they give cheerfully.

The instructions given in the New Testament regarding the financial support of the gospel ministry are unmistakably clear. Those men and women who believe the gospel of the grace of God are expected to support generously those who preach it. Not only is this expected, among Gods saints it is practiced. Gods children are not miserly, self-centered worldlings. They are stewards who use what God has put in their hands for the cause of Christ. They need only to be instructed from the Word of God, and they gladly submit to it.

Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us plainly and repeatedly that those who preach the gospel are to live by the gospel (Mat 10:9-10; Luk 10:4-7; 1Co 9:14; 1Ti 5:17-18). Those men who faithfully preach the gospel of Gods free and sovereign grace in Christ are to be supported and maintained by the people to whom they minister. Faithful missionaries should be as fully and generously supported by the churches that send them out as the pastors of those local churches.

There were times when Paul and his companions were required to make tents to support themselves in the work of the gospel. It was an honorable thing for them to do so. Paul tells us that his goal was not to enrich himself, but to avoid being a burden to young churches (1Th 2:9) and to avoid causing an offence to young, weak believers (1Co 9:15-19). But the fact that Gods messenger had to spend his time and efforts making tents was a shameful reproach upon the churches. Those churches that were established in the gospel should have assumed the responsibility of supplying Pauls needs and the needs of his companions, as they travelled from place to place preaching the gospel. The New Testament clearly makes it the responsibility of every local church to provide for the financial, material support of those who preach the gospel of Christ.

A Reasonable Precept

Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. The word communicate means to share with or distribute to. It comes from the word communion and basically means the same thing as fellowship. Paul is saying, Let everyone to whom the gospel is preached have fellowship with and participate in the preaching of the gospel by supplying the earthly, material needs of those who preach it. Edgar Andrews explains

Paul’s formula is very simple: those who are ‘taught the word’ should share their material wealth with ‘him who teaches’. In other words, the congregation should support its minister(s) financially, and do so (as the word ‘share’ implies) at the same standard of living as they themselves enjoy. This was the principle that God laid down for the support of the Levites by the remaining tribes of Israel in Old Testament times (though the New Testament transmutes obligation into willingness). Where pioneer missions are involved, and until there is a congregation to support the preacher, the sending church or churches will bear this responsibility. But let us also notice that when Paul and Barnabas were sent out by the church at Antioch (Act 13:3), they did not spend the first six months securing pledges for their support! On the contrary, they departed immediately for Cyprus, to preach the Word of God. They knew they had been sent out, not only by the church, but by the Holy Spirit, who was well able to care for their needs as they arose (Act 13:4-5).

To whom is this communication to be made? Paul did not lay down a blanket rule that we should give financial support to every preacher, evangelist, or missionary who comes along claiming to speak for God. Those who deny the gospel of Christ, preachers of free-will, works religion, are not to be supported by Gods saints (2Jn 1:9-11).

Pauls doctrine is this: those preachers who faithfully teach the Word of God are to be supported by the church; particularly, they are to be supported by the churches they pastor. We must not let ourselves be deceived by personality, charm, or flowery speech. Gods prophets are not always personable, but they are always profitable. Their delivery is not always impressive, but their message is always instructive. Their preaching is not always stirring, but it is always sound. Every preacher must be judged by one thing: what does he preach? What is his doctrine? Gods servants faithfully instruct men and women in the Word by preaching the gospel of Christ. They teach their hearers the Word of truth; and those who hear them are taught in the Word of truth. If a man is sent of God to preach the gospel, he will preach with such unmistakable clarity that all who hear him regularly will be taught the doctrine of Christ.

If you want to know what a man preaches, ask the people who hear him. If he consciously and consistently preaches the gospel, they will know it (see Joh 18:19-21). It is impossible for a person to hear a man preach the gospel regularly and not know, at least in his head, the doctrine of the gospel. He will know his lost condition of depravity and condemnation by nature (Rom 5:12; Eph 2:1-3). He will have some understanding of the doctrine of Christ: our Lords divine person, his incarnation and virgin birth, his representative obedience to God for his people, his effectual, sin-atoning, substitutionary death. Those who are privileged to hear a man faithfully preach the gospel will know that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. All who hear the gospel faithfully preached are taught what happened in the garden, what happened on the cross, and how God saves sinners. And the man who faithfully preaches those things is worthy of the financial support of Gods people.

It is the responsibility of Gods church to generously supply the needs of every man who faithfully preaches the gospel of Gods free and sovereign grace in Christ. This is only reasonable. Are you taught the good things of the gospel? Then it is your reasonable and equitable responsibility to supply the material needs of the man who teaches you. You should supply him with good things materially who supplies you with good things spiritually (1Co 9:11). It is the ordinance of Christ that, They which preach the gospel should live of the gospel (1Co 9:14). No man who preaches the gospel of the grace of God should be required to provide for himself or his family (Act 6:2-4; 2Ti 2:4). This support of the ministry must begin with each local church supporting its own pastor. Once that is taken care of, every local church should assume responsibility for the support of faithful missionaries. Those churches that are well established should also assist in the support of smaller churches and their pastors.

Gods servants are not ambitious, greedy men. Faithful men will not abuse, or take advantage of, the generosity of Gods people (1Co 9:17-18). But Gods preachers should never be expected to live as paupers. Those men who labor in the Word and doctrine of Christ, faithfully giving themselves to the work of the ministry, are to be supported generously in a comfortable life-style.

I am often asked, How much should the church pay its pastor? I often reply, How much does it take for you to live? The pastor has a wife and children to clothe, feed, house, and educate, just like you. And he will incur many necessary expenses that you do not. His home is a virtual free hotel for Gods people, and he wants it to be. His table almost always has a few extra mouths to feed, and he wants them there. He has miles to travel and books to buy, necessary for his work. All these things require cold, hard cash every week. When the church contemplates the pastors salary, a good rule of thumb is this: pay the pastor at least as much as the average income of the working men in the congregation; and then add enough to cover his additional expenses. If the church is not able to do what is needed, it is expected and responsible to do the best it can, and this is only reasonable.

Cheerful Giving

How is this financial support to be secured? This may seem strange to some; but the way to secure financial support for the gospel of Christ and those who preach it is in fact not to secure it. God will supply the needs of his church and his servants by the free, voluntary, generous gifts of his people. The moment a preacher, a missionary, or a church begins to secure its financial stability on its own, it leans upon the arm of the flesh and dishonors God.

There are some things, dishonoring to God and contrary to the gospel of his grace, which must not be done. Gods church must never be brought back under the law by having the law of the tithe imposed upon them. We must never solicit pledges from people, hold bake sales or rummage sales, or set up investment schemes to raise money for Gods work. Gods servants and his churches must never beg and grovel for help from men, as though the work of God depended upon mans assistance. Nor must we ever solicit the aid of unbelievers. I know these things are commonly practiced in our day; but they are contrary to every principle of grace and faith. Gods church operates by faith, and faith looks to God, not man! Any work that is of God will have its needs supplied by God through the free, voluntary gifts of Gods saints (2Co 9:7).

If a pastor wants the people to whom he preaches to be generous, he must be generous. In all things, like a shepherd, the pastor must lead Gods sheep and show them the way by personal example. The moment men and women detect selfishness, greed, and unfaithfulness in their pastor, these things will be reflected in them.

The Word of God supplies us with an abundance of instruction about the matter of giving. All of 1 Corinthians 9 and 2 Corinthians chapters 8-9 are taken up with this subject. But there are no commands given to the people of God anywhere in the New Testament about how much we are to give, when we are give, or where we are to give. Tithing and all systems like it are totally foreign to the New Testament. Giving, like all other acts of worship, is an act of faith and grace. It must be free and voluntary, or it is unacceptable. However, there are some plain, simple guidelines laid down in the Scriptures for us to follow. Here are ten things revealed in the New Testament about giving.

1.Our giving should be planned (2Co 9:7).

2.Our giving must be free, voluntary, unconstrained (2Co 9:7).

3.Our giving must be motivated by love and gratitude towards Christ (2Co 8:7-9).

4.Our giving must arise from a willing heart (2Co 8:12).

5.Every believer should give to the work of the gospel according to his personal ability (1Co 16:2).

6.Every believer should give a portion of his goods for the cause of Christ (1Co 16:2).

7.Our gifts for the gospel should be liberal and sacrificial (2Co 9:5-6; Mar 12:41-44).

8.We are to give as unto the Lord (Mat 6:1-5).

9.This kind of giving is well-pleasing to God (2Co 9:7; Php 4:18; Heb 13:16).

10.If we are willing to give, God will supply us with the ability to give (2Co 9:10 : Luk 6:38; Php 4:19).

Someone once said, There are three kinds of giving: grudge-giving, duty-giving and thanksgiving. Grudge-giving says, I have to. Duty-giving says, I ought to. Thanksgiving says, I want to.

A Recognized Principle

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting (Gal 6:7).

Be not deceived. The Judaizers and false teachers at Galatia were persuading these men and women not to support the men who faithfully preached the gospel of Christ to them, and devised many excuses for them not to do so, which the Galatians readily seized. People are easily led astray from what they know to be right by personal greed and covetousness. They often excuse their miserliness by their own earthly cares and responsibilities, or by finding some petty fault with the preacher. Neither excuse is valid. If we work hard and live within our means, we will not be too financially strapped to give. Nor do our personal likes or dislikes of something about Gods messenger in any way lessen our responsibility to support him in the work of the gospel. Men with money often try to exert control over a pastor by how much they give, or refuse to give. It should not need saying that Gods people do not have this attitude, or that Gods servants cannot be controlled by money!

God is not mocked. Men and women who find excuses not to give to the cause of Christ and work of the gospel mock God. Paul is saying, You cannot insult God and get away with it! Remember, in the context Paul is talking about the support of the gospel ministry. If a man comes to you in the name of God, preaching the gospel of Christ, and you refuse to give of your means to support him, you insult God! And you will not get away with it!

For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. This is a universal law, applying to every realm of life. Generally speaking, whatever we sow, as to kind, quality, and quantity, we will reap. If a farmer sows wheat, he reaps wheat. If he sows sparingly, he will reap sparingly. If he sows bountifully, he will reap bountifully. If he sows good seed, he will reap a good harvest. If he sows nothing, he will reap nothing. Everyone understands that in the natural world; but here Paul applies it to the things of God.

He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. In other words, if we use what God puts in our hands to pamper our flesh and gratify our personal greed and covetousness, if we spend our substance upon luxuries for ourselves and our families, or hoard it up to increase our riches, we shall of the flesh reap corruption. Paul is telling us that the way we use, or abuse, our money reveals the true state and condition of our hearts (see Mat 6:19-24).

But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. This does not mean that men and women can earn salvation, or even a greater degree of heavenly reward and glory by what they give to the cause of Christ. The text simply means that, if we lay out our worldly substance for the cause of Christ, the preaching of the gospel, and the good of his kingdom, we will reap that for which we have sown it life everlasting! Our use of what God puts in our hands does not secure anything for us, but it does reveal the true state and condition of our hearts (Mat 25:24-30).

A Required Perseverance

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith (Gal 6:9-10). Satan uses many things to discourage us, and God uses many things to try us. We do not see immediate results. Our circumstances, the economy of the nation and the needs of our families all change. We sometimes begin to think, Maybe I ought to stop, or at least curtail my giving. Nothing much appears to be accomplished by it. The kingdom of God will get along all right without my few dollars in the offering plate.

To such thoughts, Paul says, Dont give up now! In due season, at God s appointed time, we shall reap, if we faint not. The seed sown will spring up again, and the bread cast upon the waters will be found after many days. But there must be a time of waiting between the sowing of the seed and the reaping of the harvest. This time of waiting is to try our faith, to prove whether we really believe God. It is our responsibility to use what God has given us for the cause of Christ, to sow to the Spirit and to wait for God to give the increase. He will give it in his way, at his time, for his glory. Robert Hawkers comments on this verse are excellent

The Apostles train of argument is, that the Lords people should never be weary, nor faint in their minds, at any exercises they meet with, in the present time-state of their existence. Christ is their portion. And in due season, on his account, and for his sake alone, they will reap the blessed fruits of that inheritance, to which, as his people, they are begotten, by his soul-travail, blood-shedding, and righteousness. The expression is not unsimilar to what is said in Heb 6:12 Be ye not slothful, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. By doing good, Paul means communicating to the needs of men and women, particularly to the needs of Gods children, and, in this context, to the needs of his servants. While the time of life lasts, let us use what God gives us for the good of his people and the furtherance of the gospel. If we do so, then we partake of and have fellowship with Gods servants in their work (Mat 10:40-42; 3Jn 1:8).

Paul is calling for commitment to Christ. If I am committed to something, I throw my life into it; and if I am committed to the cause of Christ in this world, I throw my life into his cause. That means that I do whatever has to be done and give whatever has to be given to get the job done. The very least that I can do is give! Let us give ourselves in unreserved commitment to Christ and the cause of the gospel of his grace for the glory of our God.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

communicate

Or, share with him. 1Co 9:7-15; 1Ti 5:18.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

Deu 12:19, Mat 10:10, Rom 15:27, 1Co 9:9-14, 1Ti 5:17, 1Ti 5:18

Reciprocal: Gen 47:22 – for the priests Lev 7:9 – shall be Num 6:21 – beside that Num 18:21 – even the service Num 18:31 – your reward Num 31:41 – Eleazar Deu 14:27 – the Levite Jos 21:2 – The Lord Jdg 19:20 – let all thy wants 2Ki 4:42 – bread 2Ch 31:4 – that they might Neh 10:36 – unto Neh 12:47 – gave Isa 23:18 – for them Luk 10:7 – for Rom 12:7 – or he Rom 15:26 – it 1Co 9:4 – we 1Co 9:11 – sown 1Co 9:14 – ordained Phi 4:10 – your Phi 4:14 – ye did 1Th 5:13 – esteem 2Th 3:9 – Not Heb 13:16 – communicate

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Gal 6:6. -But let him who is taught in the word communicate with him who teacheth in all good things. The verb , besides its literal signification, denotes to communicate information orally-to sound it in one’s ears, Act 21:21; Act 21:24; or to teach by means of oral instruction, Act 18:25, 1Co 14:19; sometimes with and a genitive, referring to the contents, Luk 1:4; or with , Rom 2:18, referring to the source. Sometimes it has both a genitive of thing and person, Act 21:24. The word, however, seems here to signify to teach or instruct generally. Such instruction was in the early church usually oral, and could at that time be nothing else; but the oralness of it ceases to be recognised as a primary and distinctive feature. Thus the Greek fathers explain the word simply by or ; Hesychius explaining . It came to denote familiar tuition; and the , as opposed to the , were persons under preliminary instruction in the elements of Christianity. The passive participle is here followed by the accusative of reference or second government, Winer, 32, 5; or, as Schmalfeld calls it, of qualitative object, 25. Jelf, 579; Suicer, sub voce. is the gospel. Act 13:26; Act 15:7; Act 20:32; Luk 1:2; Luk 5:1; Eph 1:13.

The duty of him who is instructed in the word is expressed by . . . -let him share with him that teacheth. The verb is sometimes used with the genitive, to partake of, Heb 2:14; and sometimes with the dative, to share in, Rom 12:13; Rom 15:27, 1Ti 5:22, 1Pe 4:13; Wis 6:25, . It is also found with the dative of person, the thing being governed as here by , or by , as in Php 4:15. Plato, De Repub. 5.453. In the New Testament the prevailing if not uniform sense is intransitive, though not in classical usage. Xen. Mem. 2.6, 22; Polyb. 2.42, 5; Plato, De Leg. 8.844. It may stand, according to Thomas Magister, either , or . . . . The sense is then strictly, not-let him communicate, but, let him be in communication with; and it may be either as giver or receiver-the last in Rom 15:27, and the first in Rom 12:13. The transitive sense would seem to require , but agrees with the intransitive-the sphere of communication. Franke (in Wolf) joins the phrase with the immediately preceding words, -with him that teacheth in all good things. But in that case the accusative would be employed.

The meaning of the phrase itself has been disputed. Marcion (in Jerome), Hennike, Matthies, Meyer, Schott, Trana, Jatho, Sardinoux, and Keerl understand it of spiritual things; Vmel supplying this contrast-in allem Guten, nicht in Irrlehren. See Mynster’s kleine theol. Schriften, p. 70. The words may bear such a meaning. The article is wanting here; so that , Joh 5:29, and in the following Gal 6:10, are not adducible in proof. Were this the sole view, the communication would be tantamount to imitation, or the connection between teacher and taught was to refer to all kinds of spiritual good-getting it, or rather giving it, as the injunction is upon the taught. But the singular is more in Paul’s style when he refers to ethical good. Col 1:10; Heb 13:21, ; Rom 2:10; Rom 12:2; Rom 12:9; Rom 13:3; Rom 16:19; Eph 6:8; 1Th 5:15; Phm 1:6, etc.; Sept. Isa 7:15. The reference to temporal things is the almost unanimous opinion of ancient and modern interpreters. has this sense, Luk 12:18-19; Luk 16:25, and often in the Septuagint, 2Sa 7:28, 1Ch 17:26, 2Ch 18:12; 2Ch 18:17. Comp. Luk 1:53. At all events, it is virtually the same doctrine which he teaches in 1Co 9:11. Compare 1Th 2:6; 1Th 2:9, 1Ti 5:17-18. The occurrence of is somewhat difficult, and the expression is vague. Wieseler therefore includes both ideas in the reciprocal sense-the taught being in communication with the teacher in temporal things, as the teacher is in communication with the taught in spiritual things. See also Bagge, Gwynne, Schmoller.

It is somewhat difficult to trace the connection; but it seems to be suggested by the last verse. The may continue the thought under another aspect; thus, he had said, Bear one another’s burdens-now-, this is one form in which the precept may be obeyed;-or he had said, Every man must bear his own load; but-, this does not exempt you from bearing the burden of your teachers. It is an obligation not to be slighted, or left to mere caprice. So-called voluntaryism is not optionalism. The duty consists (Theophylact) in the giving to the pastor of food, raiment, honour, etc.-, , ; for thou receivest more than thou givest-spiritual things for carnal things. Keerl takes the connection from Gal 6:1, understanding by him who is taught in the word the fallen brother who has been restored, while the intervening verses guard the spiritual restorers against pride. But this connection is artificial and narrow.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Gal 6:6. In 1Co 9:14 it is said that “they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.” No preacher can literally live on the word of God, hence the passage means he is to get his living from those who receive the preaching; such is the meaning of the present verse. To communicate denotes the act of giving, and good things means the things necessary to life. The man who devotes his time to the preaching of the Gospel, should be financially supported by those who get the benefit of the preaching.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Gal 6:6. Let him that is taught (or, orally instructed) in the word (of God) share with him that teacheth, in all good things (temporal possessions of every kind). Injunction of the duty of the congregation to support liberally their teachers. Their relation is a partnership, a communion of interests. They are mutually dependent and helpful, and should share each others blessings and burdens. Temporal support is but a small return for spiritual blessings. The Galatians needed this exhortation very much. They were asked to contribute to the suffering churches in Judaea (1Co 16:1), but we do not learn that they did it. The niggardly spirit of the Gauls was proverbial.[1] Paul set a noble example of self-denial in supporting himself as a tent-maker, preaching the gospel by day and working at his trade by night! Only by exception he received contributions from his beloved Philippians. And he was never weary to take up collections in his poor congregations for the support of the still poorer brethren in Judaea. But as our Saviour laid down the principle that the laborer is worthy of his hire (Luk 10:7), so the Apostle repeatedly urges upon his readers the duty of supporting their teachers. See 1Th 2:6; 1Th 2:9; 1Co 9:4 ff.; 2Co 11:7 ff.; Php 4:10 ff.; 1Ti 5:17-18. The less a minister says on the pulpit about his salary the better; but sometimes duty requires plain talk on this delicate subject. The passage implies that the church ought to be supported by voluntary contributions of the people, not by taxation, which checks the exercise of liberality, and is apt to create indifference and dislike. Gal 6:7. Enforces the duty of liberality. It carries in itself its own exceeding great reward, for it is more blessed to rive than to receive, and sows the seed for a rich harvest in heaven; while illiberality and stinginess belittles and beggars the man here, and lets him go empty on the great day of reward.

[1] Livy calls the Galatians avidissima repiendi gens (xxxviii. 27).

Be not deceived. How many deceive themselves and imagine that they can withhold from their minister his just dues without incurring the displeasure of God.

God is not mocked, cannot be treated with contempt without provoking his righteous punishment

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Comp. 2Co 9:6.) A proverbial expression (Job 4:8), found also among classical writers (Aristotle, Cicero, etc.), but here spiritualized and applied to the future reward and punishment. The present life is the seed time, the future life the harvest. Who sows grain will reap grain, who sows tares will reap tares; who sows plentifully will reap plentifully, who sows sparingly will reap sparingly. Those who keep this great truth constantly before their eyes will redeem every hour and use every opportunity to do good.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

In this and the following verses our apostle enters upon a new exhortation, and that is, to stir up the Galatians to liberality and beneficence; upon every fitting occasion, to be ready to distribute, willing to communicate, and to do good unto all men. And because it is highly probable, that by reason of the prevalency of error amongst them, and the number of false teachers found with them, the Galatians’ love to the word, and to the ministers and dispensers of it, was grown cold: he first begins to stir up their liberality towards their teachers, saying, Let him that is taught in the word of the gospel, communicate unto him that teacheth in all such good things as he stands in need of.

Learn hence, 1. That the wisdom of God hath seen it fit to teach men by the ministry of man, not by his own immediate voice, this we cannot bear; nor by the glorious angels, these would rather terrify than teach us; but by men like ourselves, doth the great God instruct us. He has appointed some to teach, and obliged others to be taught; but the pride of man is grown to that pitch in our days, that almost every one thinks himself sufficient to teach, and few have humility enough to be taught.

Learn, 2. That it is the special duty of ministers, not only to teach, but to teach the word: Let him that is taught in the word, that is, the written word, as dictated by the Holy Ghost, communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Our business is not to go into the pulpit and read a lecture to our people out of Aristotle’s Ethics, or Seneca’s Morals, much less to load them with the burden of unwritten traditions; but to make known a crucified Saviour to them, and the way to eternal salvation by him.

Learn, 3. That seeing the ministers of Christ are to give themselves wholly to the work of teaching, &c. without being entangled with the affairs of this life; the people whom they teach, and amongst whom they spend their time and strength, are obliged by common equity, as well as by the command of God, to allow them a comfortable subsistence; and, if able, an honourable maintenance: Let him that is taught communicate to him that teacheth in all good things.

Learn, 4. That the church’s maintenance is only due to such ministers as are apt to teach, that labour in the word themselves: none have a right to the church’s salary, which do not perform the church’s service. Let such laymen as by the impropriations take away the vicar’s bread, and such clergy men as eat the sweat of their curates’ brow, consider how they will answer it at the bar of God.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Gal 6:6. Let him that is taught in the word Who is instructed in the doctrines and precepts of the gospel; communicate unto him that teacheth According to the ability that God hath given him; in all good things All such temporal things as he stands in need of. If, says Macknight, the teachers, who by spiritual gifts were supernaturally qualified to instruct others, deserved to be liberally maintained, how much more is a liberal maintenance due to those, who, not possessing the [extraordinary] spiritual gifts, are obliged to spend a great deal of time and money in fitting themselves for their office, and who employ themselves assiduously in discharging it!

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. [Let the one taught remunerate his teacher, bringing him pecuniary aid, honor, reverence and all other good things. The financial support of teachers is elsewhere referred to (1Ti 5:17). Failure to contribute funds to this good end, no doubt, suggested what follows (compare 2Co 9:7-8); but the paragraph is by no means to be confined to such failure, for the language is too general.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Gal 6:6. Paul thinks he has done with his moral safeguards, and turns to one special dutythat of paying Christian teachers. But presently he feels that something more must be said.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 6

Communicate; share with; that is, let the taught provide for the comfortable subsistence of their teachers.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.

A new concept for the Galatian folks. The Jews were required to tithe (actually almost three tithes) and out of that money came the pay for teachers etc. The Gentiles had to pay taxes for all of their services as well. Here, Paul is suggesting that they honor their teachers out of love, rather than duty or requirement.

Uhhhh, got that churches and congregations? Support your pastor out of love, not requirement. Uhhhh, got that pastors? The church is to support you out of love not by way of what you require.

A friend told me of a young man that candidated in a small country church in the northwest. The church extended a call to the man offering him $20, 000 a year, a parsonage, and a large freezer that would never be empty. This was many years ago when $20, 000 wasn’t bad income without the parsonage and frills that he had been offered. He turned them down because it wasn’t enough money.

Now, I hope the church relied on our previous verse for their joy, for they had done well in their labor, but the candidates negative did not reflect reality and the congregation should have been proud to have offered so nice a subsistence to the man. They were taking verse six to heart, they were communicating unto the prospect “in all good things.”

I don’t for a moment think this verse is basis for high pay for pastors. It is a principle, however, that if someone communicates the word to you, you should communicate in return “in all good things” which might include money, but it might also include helping him paint his house or taking them a meal when they are burdened with a hectic schedule.

Our present day “pay package” mentality in the pulpit is not Biblical, nor is it logical. A congregation should certainly care for their pastor if they opt for a full time man. However, that “care” need not be only in the area of money.

Another application of this principle might run along the lines of the large church that has multiple staff. When the giving is good and if this is the congregations will, then let them be paid, however if the giving drops and the congregation wants certain programs to continue but there isn’t enough money because it is going to salary, might it not be time for someone to move on? Often this possibility is not thought of, or just rejected out of hand by the leadership.

Multiple staff is usually based on need of hands to stir the pot, but if the pot is getting smaller, there is less need for the same number of hands to do the labor – someone should go stir elsewhere.

I might also step on the toes of the church and suggest that they hold their staff accountable to that phrase “taught in the word.” Many churches I have attended have men that are not teaching the word. They are teaching every philosophy under the sun and very precious little of the Word. These ought not enjoy the communication from the congregation.

I once sat and listened to a man that read a verse and said he was using it for a jumping off point. Literally it was a jumping off point, because he never once referred to it or its principle again. Indeed, he never mentioned Scripture again. He carefully linked one story into another and into another until the time was gone.

After the service, I was having coffee and the buzz was about this great sermon that we had just heard. I contained myself for awhile, and then asked a few questions. What was the point of this message, what Scripture did he use, how did he use the Scripture, did he make a point from the Scripture? The silence was beyond silence. Finally a couple of the young men saw that little light bulb go on over their head and realized that it was a good story time, but as a sermon, a message from God it was lacking in the grandest fashion.

The congregation needs to watch their use of what they have. God will hold them accountable for how they use that which God blesses them with.

I would add one other thought to this section. I personally believe that Paul was discerning in accepting money. I believe he taught that one feeding should be remunerated in some way. I also personally believe that the paid full time pastor is not Biblical, but allowable if a congregation chooses to do so. I think there are more beneficial ways to use the money and also believe that most laymen could preach and teach as good a sermon as many I’ve heard in churches.

I was working in a small rural work on a part time basis and being paid a small sum each week. When I elaborated my beliefs on this subject one of the women said after the message, “Well, if you really believe that we just won’t pay you any more.” I told her that was up to the church. That week was the last check that I received from that congregation – be careful who you share your beliefs with 🙂 (She happened to be the church treasurer.)

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

6:6 {5} Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in {f} all good things.

(5) It is fitting that teachers should be helped by their students, as much as they are able.

(f) Of whatever he has according to his ability.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. Toward teachers 6:6-9

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Here is a specific example of mutual burden-bearing. Perhaps the Judaizers were telling the Galatians not to support financially those who taught them. Under Judaism pupils paid a tax, and the teachers’ pay came through the Jewish government. The Galatian Gentiles customarily paid fees for services rendered. The concept of voluntary giving out of love for the teacher was new and different. Those who learn from Bible teachers who provide the spiritual needs of others should provide them with "all good things" including their physical needs (cf. Luk 10:7; 1Ti 5:18; 1Co 9:11; 1Co 9:14). Paul regarded the acceptance of gifts as a right one could claim or not claim depending on other factors. He did not regard accepting such gifts as the teacher’s duty but offering them as the learner’s duty.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 27

SOWING AND REAPING.

Gal 6:6-10

EACH shall bear his own burden (Gal 6:5)-but let there be communion of disciple with teacher in all that is good. The latter sentence is clearly intended to balance the former. The transition turns upon the same antithesis between social and individual responsibility that occupied us in the foregoing chapter. But it is now presented on another side. In the previous passage it concerned the conduct of “the spiritual” toward erring brethren whom they were tempted to despise; here, their behaviour toward teachers whom they were disposed to neglect. There it is inferiors, here superiors that are in view. The Galatian “vainglory” manifested itself alike in provocation toward the former, and in envy toward the latter. {Gal 5:26} In both ways it bred disaffection, and threatened to break up the Churchs unity. The two effects are perfectly consistent. Those who are harsh in their dealings with the weak, are commonly rude and insubordinate toward their betters, where they dare to be so. Self-conceit and self-sufficiency engender in the one direction a cold contempt, in the other a jealous independence. The former error is corrected by a due sense of our own infirmities; the latter by the consideration of our responsibility to God. We are compelled to feel for the burdens of others when we realise the weight of our own. We learn to respect the claims of those placed over us, when we remember what we owe to God through them. Personal responsibility is the last word of the former paragraph; social responsibility is the first word of this. Such is the contrast marked by the transitional But.

From this point of view Gal 6:6 gains a very comprehensive sense. “All good things” cannot surely be limited to the “carnal things” of 1Co 9:11. As Meyer and Beet amongst recent commentators clearly show, the context gives to this phrase a larger scope. At the same time, there is no necessity to exclude the thought of temporal good. The Apostle designedly makes his appeal as wide as possible. The reasoning of the corresponding passage in the Corinthian letter is a deduction from the general principle laid down here.

But it is spiritual fellowship that the Apostle chiefly desiderates. The true minister of Christ counts this vastly more sacred, and has this interest far more at heart than his own temporalities. He labours for the unity of the Church; he strives to secure the mutual sympathy and co-operation of all orders and ranks-teachers and taught, officers and private members-“in every good word and work.” He must have the heart of his people with him in his work, or his joy will be faint and his success scant indeed. Christian teaching is designed to awaken this sympathetic response. And it will take expression in the rendering of whatever kind of help the gifts and means of the hearer and the needs of the occasion call for. Paul requires every member of the Body of Christ to make her wants and toils his own. We have no right to leave the burdens of the Churchs work to her leaders, to expect her battles to be fought and won by the officers alone. This neglect has been the parent of innumerable mischiefs. Indolence in the laity fosters sacerdotalism in the clergy. But when, on the contrary, an active, sympathetic union is maintained between “him that is taught” and “him that teacheth,” that other matter of the temporal support of the Christian ministry, to which this text is so often exclusively referred, comes in as a necessary detail, to be generously and prudently arranged, but which will not be felt on either side as a burden or a difficulty. Everything depends on the fellowship of spirit, on the strength of the bond of love that knits together the members of the Body of Christ. Here, in Galatia, that bond had been grievously weakened. In a Church so disturbed, the fellowship of teachers and taught was inevitably strained.

Such communion the Apostle craves from his children in the faith with an intense yearning. This is the one fruit of Gods grace in them which he covets to reap for himself, and feels he has a right to expect. “Be ye as I am,” he cries-“do not desert me, my children, for whom I travail in birth. Let me not have to toil for you in vain”. {Gal 4:12-19} So again, writing to the Corinthians: “It was I that begat you in Christ Jesus; I beseech you then, be followers of me. Let me remind you of my ways in the LordO ye Corinthians, to you our mouth is open, our heart enlarged. Pay me back in kind (you are my children), and be ye too enlarged”. {1Co 4:14-17; 2Co 6:11-13} He “thanks God” for the Philippians “on every remembrance of them,” and “makes his supplication” for them “with joy, because of their fellowship in regard to the gospel from the first day until now”. {Php 1:3-7} Such is the fellowship which Paul wished to see restored in the Galatian Churches.

In Gal 6:10 he extends his appeal to embrace in it all the kindly offices of life. For the love inspired by the Church, the service rendered to her, should quicken all our human sympathies and make us readier to meet every claim of pity or affection. While our sympathies, like those of a loving family, will be concerned “especially” with “the household of faith,” and within that circle more especially with our pastors and teachers in Christ, they have no limit but that of “opportunity”; they should “work that which is good toward all men.” True zeal for the Church widens, instead of narrowing, our charities. Household affection is the nursery, not the rival, of love to our fatherland and to humanity.

Now the Apostle is extremely urgent in this matter of communion between teachers and taught. It concerns the very life of the Christian community. The welfare of the Church and the progress of the kingdom of God depend on the degree to which its individual members accept their responsibility in its affairs. Ill-will towards Christian teachers is paralysing in its effects on the Churchs life. Greatly are they to blame, if their conduct gives rise to discontent. Only less severe is the condemnation of those in lower place who harbour in themselves and foster in the minds of others sentiments of disloyalty. To cherish this mistrust, to withhold our sympathy from him who serves us in spiritual things, this, the Apostle declares, is not merely a wrong done to the man, it is an affront to God Himself. If it be Gods Word that His servant teaches, then God expects some fitting return to be made for the gift He has bestowed. Of that return the pecuniary contribution, the meed of “carnal things” with which so many seem to think their debt discharged, is often the least and easiest part. How far have men a right to be hearers-profited and believing hearers-in the Christian congregation, and yet decline the duties of Church fellowship? They eat the Churchs bread, but will not do her work. They expect like children to be fed and nursed and waited on; they think that if they pay their minister tolerably well, they have “communicated with” him quite sufficiently. This apathy has much the same effect as the Galatian bickerings and jealousies. It robs the Church of the help of the children whom she has nourished and brought up. Those who act thus are trying in reality to “mock God.” They expect Him to sow his bounties upon them, but will not let Him reap. They refuse Him the return that He most requires for His choicest benefits.

Now, the Apostle says, God is not to be defrauded in this way. Men may wrong each other; they may grieve and affront His ministers. But no man is clever enough to cheat God. It is not Him, it is themselves they will prove to have deceived. Vain and selfish men who take the best that God and man can do for them as though it were a tribute to their greatness, envious and restless men who break the Churchs fellowship of peace, will reap at last even as they sow. The mischief and the loss may fall on others now; but in its full ripeness it will come in the end upon themselves. The final reckoning awaits us in another world. And as we act by God and by His Church now, in our day, so He will act hereafter by us in His day.

Thus the Apostle, in Gal 6:6-7, places this matter in the searching light of eternity. He brings to bear upon it one of the great spiritual maxims characteristic of his teaching. Pauls unique influence as a religious teacher lies in his mastery of principles of this kind, in the keenness of insight and the incomparable vigour with which he applies eternal truths to commonplace occurrences. The paltriness and vulgarity of these local broils and disaffections lend to his warning a more severe impressiveness. With what a startling and sobering force, one thinks, the rebuke of these verses must have fallen on the ears of the wrangling Galatians! How unspeakably mean their quarrels appear in the light of the solemn issues opening out before them! It was God whom their folly had presumed to mock. It was the harvest of eternal life of which their factiousness threatened to defraud them.

The principle on which this warning rests is stated in terms that give it universal application: Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. This is in fact the postulate of all moral responsibility. It asserts the continuity of personal existence, the connection of cause and effect in human character. It makes man the master of his own destiny. It declares that his future doom hangs upon his present choice, and is in truth its evolution and consummation. The twofold lot of “corruption” or “life eternal” is in every case no more, and no less, than the proper harvest of the kind of sowing practised here and now. The use made of our seed-time determines exactly, and with a moral certainty greater even than that which rules in the natural field, what kind of fruitage our immortality will render.

This great axiom deserves to be looked at in its broadest aspect. It involves the following considerations:-

1. Our present life is the seed-time of an eternal harvest.

Each recurring year presents a mirror of human existence. The analogy is a commonplace of the worlds poetry. The spring is in every land a picture of youth-its morning freshness and innocence, its laughing sunshine, its opening blossoms, its bright and buoyant energy; and, alas, oftentimes its cold winds and nipping frosts and early, sudden blight! Summer images a vigorous manhood, with all the powers in action and the pulses of life beating at full swing; when the dreams of youth are worked out in sober, waking earnest; when manly strength is tested and matured under the heat of mid-day toil, and character is disciplined, and success or failure in lifes battle must be determined. Then follows mellow autumn, season of shortening days and slackening steps and gathering snows; season too of ripe experience, of chastened thought and feeling, of widened influence and clustering honours. And the story ends in the silence and winter of the grave! Ends? Nay, that is a new beginning! This whole round of earthly vicissitude is but a single spring-time. It is the mere childhood of mans existence, the threshold of the vast house of life.

The oldest and wisest man amongst us is only a little child in the reckoning of eternity. The Apostle Paul counted himself no more. “We know in part,” he says; “we prophesy in part-talking, reasoning like children. We shall become men, seeing face to face, knowing as we are known”: {1Co 13:8; 1Co 13:11-12} Do we not ourselves feel this in our higher, moods? There is an instinct of immortality, a forecasting of some ampler existence, “a stirring of blind life” within the soul; there are visionary gleams of an unearthly Paradise haunting at times the busiest and most unimaginative men. We are intelligences in the germ, lying folded up in the chrysalis stage of our existence. Eyes, wings are still to come. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be,” no more than he who had seen but the seed-sowing of early spring and the bare wintry furrows, could imagine what the golden, waving harvest would be like. There is a glorious, everlasting kingdom of heaven, a world which in its duration, its range of action and experience, its style of equipment and occupation, will be worthy of the elect children of God. Worship, music, the purest passages of human affection and of moral elevation, may give us some foretaste of its joys. But what it will be really like, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; nor heart of man conceived.”

Think of that, struggling heart, worn with labour, broken by sorrow, cramped and thwarted by the pressure of an unkindly world. “The earnest expectancy of the creation” waits for your revealing. {Rom 8:19} You will have your enfranchisement; your soul wilt take wing at last. Only have faith in God, and in righteousness; only be not weary in well-doing. Those crippled powers will get their full play. Those baffled purposes and frustrated affections will unfold and blossom into a completeness undreamed of now, in the sunshine of heaven, in “the liberty of the glory of the sons of God.” Why look for your harvest here? It is March, not August yet. “In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” See to it that you “sow to the Spirit,” that your life be of the true seed of the kingdom; and for the rest, have no care nor fear. What should we think of the farmer who in winter, when his fields were frost-bound, should go about wringing his hands and crying that his labour was all lost! Are we wiser in our despondent moods? However dreary and unpromising, however poor and paltry in its outward seeming the earthly seed-time, your lifes work will have its resurrection. Heaven lies hidden in those daily acts of humble, difficult duty, even as the giant oak with its centuries of growth and all its summer glory sleeps in the acorn-cup. No eye may see it now; but ” the Day will declare it!”

2. In the second place, the quality of the future harvest depends entirely on the present sowing.

In quantity, as we have seen, in outward state and circumstance, there is a complete contrast. The harvest surpasses the seed from which it sprang, by thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold. But in quality we find a strict agreement. In degree they may differ infinitely; in kind they are one. The harvest multiplies the effect of the sowers labour; but it multiplies exactly that effect, and nothing else. This law runs through all life. If we could not count upon it, labour would be purposeless and useless; we should have to yield ourselves passively to natures caprice. The farmer sows wheat in his cornfield, the gardener plants and trains his fig-tree; and he gets wheat, or figs, for his reward-nothing else. Or is he a “sluggard” that “will not plough by reason of the cold?” Does he let weeds and thistledown have the run of his garden-plot? Then it yields him a plentiful harvest of thistles and of weeds! What could he expect? “Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles.” From the highest to the lowest order of living things, each grows and fructifies “after its kind.” This is the rule of nature, the law which constituted Nature at the beginning. The good tree brings forth good fruit; and the good seed makes the good tree.

All this has its moral counterpart. The law of reproduction in kind holds equally true of the relation of this life to the next. Eternity for us will be the multiplied, consummated outcome of the good or evil of the present life. Hell is just sin ripe-rotten ripe. Heaven is the fruitage of righteousness. There will be two kinds of reaping, the Apostle tells us, because there are two different kinds of sowing. “He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption”: there is nothing arbitrary or surprising in that. “Corruption”-the moral decay and dissolution of the mans being-is the natural retributive effect of his carnality. And “he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Here too, the sequence is inevitable. Like breeds its like. Life springs of life; and death eternal is the culmination of the souls present death to God and goodness. The future glory of the saints is at once a Divine reward, and a necessary development of their present faithfulness. And eternal life lies germinally contained in faiths earliest beginning, when it is but as “a grain of mustard seed.” We may expect in our final state the outcome of our present conduct, as certainly as the farmer who puts wheat into his furrows in November will count on getting wheat out of them again next August.

Under this law of the harvest we are living at this moment, and sowing every day the seed of an immortality of honour or of shame. Life is the seed-plot of eternity; and youth is above all the seed-time of life. What are our children doing with these precious, vernal years? What is going into their minds? What ideas, what desires are rooting themselves in these young souls? If it be pure thoughts and true affections, love to God, self-denial, patience and humility, courage to do what is right-if these be the things that are sown in their hearts, there will be for them, and for us, a glorious harvest of wisdom and love and honour in the years to come, and in the day of eternity. But, if sloth and deceit be there, and unholy thoughts, vanity and envy and self-indulgence, theirs will he a bitter harvesting. Men talk of “sowing their wild oats,” as though that were an end of it; as though a wild and prodigal youth might none the less be followed by a sober manhood and an honoured old age. But it is not so. If wild oats have been sown, there will be wild oats to reap, as certainly as autumn follows spring. For every time the youth deceives parent or teacher, let him know that he will be deceived by the Father of lies a hundred times. For every impure thought or dishonourable word, shame will come upon him sixty-fold. If his mind be filled with trash and refuse, then trash and refuse are all it will be able to produce. If the good seed be not timely sown in his heart, thorns and nettles will sow themselves there fast enough; and his soul will become like the sluggards garden, rank with base weeds and poison-plants, a place where all vile things will have their resort, – “rejected and nigh unto a curse.”

Who is “he that soweth to his own flesh?” It is, in a word, the selfish man. He makes his personal interest, and as a rule his bodily pleasure, directly or ultimately, the object of life. The sense of responsibility to God, the thought of life as a stewardship of which one must give account, have no place in his mind. He is a “lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God.” His desires, unfixed on God, steadily tend downwards. Idolatry of self becomes slavery to the flesh. Every act of selfish pleasure-seeking, untouched by nobler aims, weakens and worsens the souls life. The selfish man gravitates downward into the sensual man; the sensual man downward into the bottomless pit. This is the “minding of the flesh” which “is death.” {Rom 8:5-8; Rom 8:13} For it is “enmity against God” and defiance of His law. It overthrows the course of nature, the balance of our human constitution; it brings disease into the frame of our being. The flesh, unsubdued, and uncleansed by the virtue of the Spirit, breeds “corruption.” Its predominance is the sure presage of death. The process of decay begins already, this side of the grave; and it is often made visible by appalling signs. The bloated face, the sensual leer, the restless, vicious eye, the sullen brow tell us what is going on within. The mans soul is rotting in his body. Lust and greed are eating out of him the capacity for good. And if he passes on to the eternal harvest as he is, if that fatal corruption is not arrested, what doom can possibly await such a man but that of which our merciful Saviour spoke so plainly that we might tremble and escape-“the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched!”

3. And finally, God Himself is the Lord of the moral harvest. The rule of retribution, the nexus that binds together our sowing and our reaping, is not something automatic and that comes about of itself; it is directed by the will of God, who “worketh all in all.”

Even in the natural harvest we look upwards to Him. The order and regularity of nature, the fair procession of the seasons waiting on the silent and majestic march of the heavens, have in all ages directed thinking and grateful men to the Supreme Giver, to the creative Mind and sustaining Will that sits above the worlds. As Paul reminded the untutored Lycaonians, “He hath not left Himself without witness, in that He gave us rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” It is “God” that “gives the increase” of the husbandmans toil, of the merchants forethought, of the artists genius and skill. We do not sing our harvest songs, with our Pagan forefathers, to sun and rain and west wind, to mother Earth and the mystic powers of Nature.

In these poetic idolatries were yet blended higher thoughts and a sense of Divine beneficence. But “to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him.” In the harvest of the earth man is a worker together with God. The farmer does his part, fulfilling the conditions God has laid down in nature; “he putteth in the wheat in rows, and the barley in its appointed place; for his God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach him.” He tills the ground, he sows the seed-and there he leaves it to God. “He sleeps and rises night and day; and the seed springs and grows up he knows not how.” And the wisest man of science cannot tell him how. “God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased Him.” But how- that is His own secret, which He seems likely to keep. All life in its growth, as in its inception, is a mystery, hid with Christ in God. Every seed sown in field or garden is a deposit committed to the faithfulness of God; which He honours by raising it up again, thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold, in the increase of the harvest.

In the moral world this Divine co-operation is the more immediate, as the field of action lies nearer, if one may so say, to the nature of God Himself. The earthly harvest may, and does often fail. Storms waste it; blights canker it; drought withers, or fire consumes it. Industry and skill, spent in years of patient labour, are doomed not unfrequently to see their reward snatched from them. The very abundance of other lands deprives our produce of its value.

The natural creation “was made subject to vanity.” His frustration and disappointment are overruled for higher ends. But in the spiritual sphere there are no casualties, no room for accident or failure. Here life comes directly into contact with the Living God, its fountain; and its laws partake of His absoluteness.

Each act of faith, of worship, of duty and integrity, is a compact between the soul and God. We “commit our souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator”. {1Pe 4:19} By every such volition the heart is yielding itself to the direction of the Divine Spirit. It “sows unto the Spirit,” whenever in thought or deed His prompting is obeyed and His will made the law of life. And as in the soil, by the Divine chemistry of nature, the tiny germ is nursed and fostered out of sight, till it lifts itself from the sod a lovely flower, a perfect fruit, so in the order of grace it will prove that from the smallest seeds of goodness in human hearts, from the feeblest beginnings of the life of faith, from the lowliest acts of love and service, God in due season will raise up a glorious harvest for which heaven itself will be the richer.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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