Galatians 4:12–20
12 Brothers,1 I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?2 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. 18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
1 Or Brothers and sisters; also verses 28, 31 2 Or by dealing truthfully with you
Section Overview: A Personal Appeal to the Galatian Believers
At various places in the letter up to this point Paul has spoken personally to the Galatians, but always in order to drive home a doctrinal point or argument (Gal. 1:6–9; 2:5; 3:1–5, 27–29; 4:6–11). Now he speaks to them as a friend whom they have hurt deeply.
He first recalls the beginning of their relationship with each other, when he initially preached the gospel in Galatia (vv. 12–14). He gave up living as a Jew when he was among them (v. 12; cf. 1 Cor. 9:21a), and they resisted the temptation to despise him, despite a debilitating illness that would have struck fear in others (Gal. 4:13–14a). Instead, they treated him with great respect (v. 14b).
He then makes a transition into an expression of astonishment and dismay at the shambles their relationship has become. Once they were happy with each other and the best of friends (v. 15), but now Paul has become their enemy (v. 16).
The central purpose of the paragraph lies in what comes next, verses 17–18. The false teachers are the problem. They are enthusiastic about their relationship with the Galatians, yet that enthusiasm does not come from honorable motives but expresses itself in a way that would be odd if it were sincere: they are excluding the Galatians from table fellowship until the Galatians do as they say.
The paragraph ends with a tenderly expressed desire to see the Galatians begin maturing again spiritually (v. 19) and an expression of confusion that extends an olive branch of good faith toward them in the hope that they might once again be Paul’s friends (v. 20).
Section Outline
III.C. Paul Shows That the Gospel Is Consistent with the Scriptures (3:6–5:1) . . .
3. A Personal Appeal to the Galatian Believers (4:12–20)
Response
This passage is a reminder that Christianity is not merely a body of doctrine but a complex web of mutually supporting relationships whose center is a growing, maturing relationship with the living Christ. This critical aspect of the Christian faith is why Paul breaks into his theological, exegetical, and pedagogical argument at this point simply to express how personally distressed he is that his former friends, in whom he has invested so much emotional energy, now seem to see him as an enemy.
When relationships among Christians become strained, especially when the source of the strain is doctrinal disagreement, Paul’s attitude in this passage offers a model to follow. He is not ready to give up on the Galatians, despite the great strain the false teachers have placed on his relationship with them, but is willing to go through the emotional stress and hard work of renewing their friendship and encouraging their spiritual growth (4:19a). He is confident, moreover, that “Christ” will be “formed” in them (v. 19b), a confidence he often seems to have about other Christians with serious problems (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:8; Phil. 1:6; Philem. 21). When our relationships with other Christians begin to suffer because of doctrinal differences, we too should be persistent in our attempts at reconciliation, trusting that if Christ is truly in those with whom we differ, their understanding of the faith and maturity in Christ will continue to grow.
Or Brothers and sisters; also verses 28, 31
Or by dealing truthfully with you
4:12 Paul now turns directly to the Galatians with an appeal to be like him, for he has become like them. This is probably a reference to Paul’s willingness to give up observance of the Mosaic law when among Gentiles (1 Cor. 9:21a), something he must have done when he preached the gospel in Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:4–14:25). Paul now wants the Galatians to reciprocate by giving up the Mosaic law themselves.
“You did me no wrong” is puzzling and may reflect a situation now lost to history. It might also function, however, as a rhetorical understatement introducing Paul’s description in Galatians 4:13–14 of their kindness to him when he was among them.
4:13–14 The circumstances lying behind this sentence are unknown. It is clear that a physical infirmity of some sort was “the reason why” Paul preached the gospel in Galatia, perhaps because it prevented Paul from traveling any further. This sickness or disability must have been severe and obvious, because Paul says that it presented a “trial” (Gk. peirasmos) to them, a temptation to reject him.
The ancient Greco-Roman world could be cruel, and suffering people were often mocked, spat upon, and scorned (cf. Mark 10:34; 14:65; 15:17–20; Luke 23:11). It was common to spit when encountering someone with an obvious infirmity or disability in order to ward off evil spirits, and the Greek terms translated “scorn” (exoutheneō) and “despise” (ekptyō) could refer to just such behavior. The Galatians did not give in to the temptation to engage in such self-indulgent, self-preserving behavior with Paul, however. They treated him like an angel rather than a demon.
4:15 The term translated “blessedness” (Gk. makarismos) refers to “pronouncing” someone or something “happy” (LSJ). Here it must refer to the happiness that the Galatians attributed to themselves or that Paul attributed to them, and, in either case, it expressed the happy friendship Paul had with the Galatians when he first preached the gospel to them.
Their relationship with Paul was so good that they would have gone to great lengths to help him. This is the force of Paul’s reference to the Galatians’ willingness even to gouge out their eyes for him if necessary. The sacrifice of one’s eyes as an act of friendship was a well-known motif in Paul’s culture (e.g., Lucian, Toxaris, or Friendship 40–41).
4:16 Paul’s “then” indicates that he formulates this question so that it asks whether his former happy relationship with the Galatian Christians is the cause of their present animosity. This makes sense only if Paul intends his question rhetorically and ironically, something that receives confirmation from his reference to telling them the truth. Telling the truth to each other, particularly the truth of the gospel (2:5, 14), is a sign of mutual support (cf. Eph. 4:15, 25). This is what Paul has done from his first visit to the Galatians (Gal. 4:13) to the present time, but somehow this has also made him their enemy.
4:17 The verb translated “make much of” (Gk. zēloō) means “to seek with zeal, with enthusiasm” (BrillDAG). Paul uses this verb in 2 Corinthians 11:2 to compare his own zeal for guarding the Christian affections of the Corinthians with the zeal of a young woman’s guardian for keeping her affections focused on her fiancé. Unlike Paul’s zeal on that occasion, however, the zeal of the false teachers in Galatia for the Galatian believers is not honorable. Rather, these troublemakers are probably trying to exclude the Galatian believers from table fellowship (cf. Gal. 2:12). At first, this may seem like an odd strategy for making the Galatians zealous for them, but social exclusion can be a powerful tool for inducing people to seek inclusion within the group excluding them. That is probably the false teachers’ purpose.
4:18 Paul has nothing against others’ enthusiastically pursuing the Galatians, as long as it is in an honorable cause (cf. 1 Cor. 3:5–9). He implies that he pursued them in an honorable cause when he was among them, but after he left others came whose enthusiastic pursuit of the Galatians was less than honorable. The phrase “and not only when” implies Paul’s disgust at the Galatians’ betrayal once he left.
4:19 Paul addresses the Galatians directly here in an exclamation that probably goes with neither the sentence before it (ESV) nor the sentence after it (NIV) but simply stands on its own as an emotion-laden, incomplete expression (NASB, RSV). Paul frequently refers to those whose faith in the gospel he has nurtured as his “children” (e.g., 1 Cor. 4:14, 17; Philem. 10), and here he extends the metaphor, imagining himself as the mother who gave birth to the Galatian Christians (cf. 1 Thess. 2:7) but now is having to go through the pain and danger of labor again. There is a sense in which this letter is a reproclamation of the gospel to people who should have never let slip away its fundamental truths of God’s grace and justification by faith alone apart from works of the law.
In the last clause of the verse, Paul shifts the metaphor dramatically to imagine the Galatians as pregnant, with a new life taking shape within them. Greek speakers of Paul’s time commonly used the term translated “form” (morphoō) to refer to the forming of a child in the mother’s womb (e.g., Philo, On the Special Laws 3.117). The Galatians’ union with Christ by faith (Gal. 3:26–27) meant not only that they were dwelling in Christ but also that Christ by the power of his Spirit was dwelling in them (4:6; cf. 2:20; Eph. 3:16–17). Paul intends to continue working with the Galatians until this process reaches maturity.
4:20 Greek speakers used the term translated “perplexed” (aporeō) to describe situations in which people were at their wits’ end and unable to understand what was happening (e.g., Luke 24:4; John 13:22) or what they should do next (e.g., Acts 25:20). Paul seems to have felt this way frequently about the churches under his oversight (2 Cor. 4:8).
Paul’s voice has been harsh at points in Galatians 4:12–19 (e.g., vv. 12, 16, 19), and this is not the tone he prefers to use with these dear friends. Perhaps if they could speak face to face (cf. 3 John 13–14), he could communicate his concern and alarm to them in nonverbal as well as verbal ways, and his verbal “tone” could be less harsh.