Galatians 6:1: Restore, and Watch Yourself

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Galatians 6:1 (NIV)

Restore, and Watch Yourself

At the ice plant the blocks come out of the tank cloudy at the core and clear at the edges, and two men move them with tongs down a steel table to the saw. The one on the table end has been there the longest. He doesn’t complain about the cold, or about the saw that runs all day at a pitch that gets into your teeth.

He’d be the one you’d send. He’s steady, and he’s never made a scene in his life.

Paul gives the work to a particular set of people. Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. He wants the one who’s fallen put back on his feet, and he wants it done gently, by people whose lives are running on the Spirit. He’s after both at once, the going and the manner of it.

The kid on the saw end is nineteen and slower than the table wants him to be. He’s been trying to get his hands to move the way the older man’s do, and he hasn’t said so to anybody. The man at the table end carries what he carries without a word and expects the same all the way down the line, and when the table slows, the look the kid gets is the entire conversation.

But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Paul says that to the ones doing the restoring. He tells them so before they go, so they walk in there with one eye on their own footing.

One morning the kid loses a block off the tongs and it breaks apart on the concrete. The man at the table end says the first sharp thing he’s said all morning. The kid gets the shovel, and on his way past he says it was his fault, before anybody gets around to saying it for him.