The verse expresses Paul's strong wish that the false teachers who were troubling the Galatians be separated and cut off from the church. Those troublers were teaching doctrines opposed to the gospel of Christ. Their influence had already spread among so many believers that direct action against them risked strife and division ruinous to the spiritual interests of the church. Rather than urging immediate cutting off, Paul therefore pressed the brethren to help one another in love in order to preserve spiritual unity.
Christian liberty is to be used not for the flesh but to serve one another in love, fulfilling all duties to fellow men in loving the neighbor as self. Paul warned against biting and devouring one another lest they be consumed one of another with present unhappiness and future ruin. He urged walking in the Spirit by constant prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which leads to love and unity. The verse stands in his call to end contention, prejudice and division and to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and judgment. Separation from Christ causes discord, while union with Christ as the great center brings unity with one another.
It means being doers of the Word in love, deference and respect, being Christlike in heart rather than merely church members. It means showing the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, with no vain glory, provoking or envying. It means restoring one overtaken in fault in meekness and bearing one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ, so that enemies get no occasion from differences among brethren. The verse belongs to a call to practice godliness through love and walking in the Spirit. Disregarding these duties and bringing common, self-made ideas into sacred work is condemned as using strange fire, showing that practical godliness has been discarded and replaced.
The verse expresses Paul's strong wish that the false teachers who were troubling the Galatians be separated and cut off from the church. Those troublers were teaching doctrines opposed to the gospel of Christ. Their influence had already spread among so many believers that direct action against them risked strife and division ruinous to the spiritual interests of the church. Rather than urging immediate cutting off, Paul therefore pressed the brethren to help one another in love in order to preserve spiritual unity.
Christian liberty is to be used not for the flesh but to serve one another in love, fulfilling all duties to fellow men in loving the neighbor as self. Paul warned against biting and devouring one another lest they be consumed one of another with present unhappiness and future ruin. He urged walking in the Spirit by constant prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which leads to love and unity. The verse stands in his call to end contention, prejudice and division and to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and judgment. Separation from Christ causes discord, while union with Christ as the great center brings unity with one another.
It means being doers of the Word in love, deference and respect, being Christlike in heart rather than merely church members. It means showing the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, with no vain glory, provoking or envying. It means restoring one overtaken in fault in meekness and bearing one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ, so that enemies get no occasion from differences among brethren. The verse belongs to a call to practice godliness through love and walking in the Spirit. Disregarding these duties and bringing common, self-made ideas into sacred work is condemned as using strange fire, showing that practical godliness has been discarded and replaced.