2 Corinthians 11:29

‘Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I burn not?'

For as a true servant of Christ he takes the burden of the weak Christians on himself (1 Corinthians 9:22), as he well can because he recognises his own weakness. He gets alongside them as one weak person to another. And when they stumble he burns with anguish. He has personal concern for all his spiritual children (compare 2 Corinthians 1:4).

‘Burn' is taken in various ways, but it must surely in context be a burning in sympathy, or alternately a burning in anger at what causes them to stumble.

The term weak can be interpreted in a number of ways. He could be including those who have a fragile conscience, as in Romans 14:1; 1 Corinthians 8:7, or Christians who felt themselves powerless in society, or Christians who do not have the spiritual fortitude to overcome temptation, or all, for he may well mean those weak in any way. Whenever God's people are weak he suffers with them and sympathises with them in their experience. For he has been through it all himself.