Bearing One Another's Burdens
Bearing One Another's Burdens Excerpt Paul addressed his advice to “those who are spiritual,” the pneumatikoi. Again, there has been much scholarly debate about who these “spirituals” were. W. Schmithals, among others, has argued on the basis of this word that Paul was addressing here an incipient party of Gnostics whose disruptive activities among the Galatians had occasioned Paul’s letter in the first place. Although later Gnostics did use the word pneumatikoi pneumatikoi as a term of self-designation, there is no reason to believe that Paul was here addressing such a self-conscious heretical group. Another, more plausible interpretation has been set forth by those who detect a note of irony and sarcasm in Paul’s use of this term in the Galatian context. Given the picture that has already emerged of a group of fractious Christ ians consumed by arrogance, conceit, and selfish ambition, we can well imagine that a group of “Holy Joes” and “Pious Polly's” had formed them...