THE KING’ S BUSINESS
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from these now estranged Galatians. These verses give us a deep insight into human nature and into the great heart o f Paul. Sunday, May 12 . Gal. 4 : 17 , 18 . Paul next turns to those who by their flatteries and their erroneous teaching were seeking to win them away from him who had told them the truth. “They zealously court you,” says Paul, “but not well” ( i. e., not in a good cause, cf. v. 18. The transla tion o f the Revised Version, “in no good way,” is rtot warranted by the Greek text). “ Their real object,” says Paul, “ is to shut you out, that (rather, in order that) ye may zealously court them.” This is the way with the proselyter, he courts with great attention and diligence the one whom he would win, but only in order that the one thus courted and won may be brought under, his power and forced to court him. Paul had no objection to zealously following a man up; he did much o f that sort of thing himself (1 Cor. 9:19-23). He only objected to thè cause in which the Judaizets did this, and the purpose for which they did it. So he says, “It is good to be zealously courted (provided only it is) in a good matter (or cause); at all times, and not only when I am preesnt with you.” Paul did not object to others, as well as himself, following them up zealously, but he insisted it must be in a good cause (cf. Phil. 1:15-18), and he seems to hint that if it was a genuine love for them and the truth that prompted it, they would be as zealous all the time as they were when he was present. Monday, May 13 . . Gal. 4 : 19 , 20 . And now Paul becomes very tender. “My little children,” he begins. Paul was not a mere teacher to them, but their spiritual father (cf. 1 Cor. 4:15). But Paul goes further in his tender yearning. “My little children, o f (or, regarding) whom I am again in travail (i. e., like a mother in pain to bring forth a, child o f her heart’s desire) until Christ be formed in you.” There is no real and full new birth until Christ be formed in one (cf. Col. 1:27). This is
infirmity he had preached the gospel to them on the first occasion (v. 13). He seems to have been detained in Galatia by this sickness when otherwise he would have gone elsewhere. Evidently God made this sickness o f his servant work for good. Verse 15 suggests that this physical infirm ity was Some affliction o f the eyes. There are those who think that the blinding vision o f Jesus Christ on the Damascus road left Paul with permanently weak eyes, and that this was his “thorn in the flesh” (cf. 2 Cor. 12:7). This physical infirmity o f Paul was a temptation to the Galatians to reject him and his teaching, but they: did ■ not despise it nor spit it out (see v. 14, R. V. Marg.), but on the contrary they received Paul in spite o f it all, as if he were an angel o f God, even as if he were Jesus Christ Himself. Paul now appeals . to this former treatment: “Why is it,” he says in substance, “that ye have so changed ? Where is now that counting o f yourselves happy because o f my coming and o f my. teaching that was so evident then?” He continues, “ I bear you witness (this is very skillfully put us a word o f praise), that, if possible you would have plucked (digged) out your eyes and given them to me.” (In other words, they were willihg to make the greatest sacrifice for Paul and give their good eyes to take the place of his poor ones). Now their treatment o f Paul had utterly changed and they were rejecting him for these new teachers. The Galatians were proverbially a changeable people, but men in general are also. It will not do to depend their favor : today they are ready to worship us, tomorrow they may reject us for another. Paul asks them if they now regard him as an enemy because he had told them the truth (v. 16). Men oftentimes do regard as an enemy the man who tells them the truth, but, in fact, the man who * tells the truth, even the most unwelcome truth, is the best of'frien d s (Prov. 9 :8 ; Ps. 141:5). There is something exceedingly tender and touching in this appeal o f Paul’s and in his recalling the glad olden days when he had found such a hearty reception
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