What Happened To You?
WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?
GALATIANS 4:11-16
We can begin well with Christ, but we also need to continue that life with God’s help.
“I am afraid I have labored over you in vain”—these words come straight from Paul’s pastoral heart as he grieves over his wayward children and is concerned for their highest welfare (1 Corinthians 4:15). We should observe that the earlier part of his discussion was general in character and tone (4:1-7); then, he turned directly to confront his readers with a change to a second person plural (4:8ff. “you”); now, he ends up by speaking to them at point-blank range (4:12).
This passionate plea recalls his first contact with the Galatian churches (4:13-14, which probably look back to Acts 14:1ff.). It was on that occasion that first they received him so warmly as a divine messenger, surnaming him Hermes, the messenger of the gods among the Greeks (Acts 14:12), and secondly they did not despise him on account of some bodily disfigurement from which he suffered (4:13-14). If 4:15 is connected with this bodily ailment, it would suggest that Paul was afflicted with some eye complaint or severe head pain (perhaps migraine) which upset his vision. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 is often taken as another description of this “thorn in the flesh.”
But the enthusiastic welcome the Galatians gave the apostle (4:15) and the way they received him as an inspired messenger of his Lord (4:14) reflect only the strangeness of their subsequent about-turn. Paul is concerned for them; he seeks to win them back to the apostolic gospel. However, he fears that some plain speaking will be needed, so he runs the risk of turning them away from himself as their pastor and father-in-God (4:16). But it is a price that must be paid if the truth of the gospel is to continue (2:5,14).