Galatians 4:12 Commentary

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Galatians 4:12

Comments

How affectionately Paul appeals to them after the strong admonition given in the previous verse. Calling them ‘Brethren’, he shows that all he has said has had their best interests at heart, indeed he longs to see them free from the grip of false teaching and restored to Christ. Some explain the words, ‘Be as I am’, as Paul urging the Galatians to follow his example and live free from the law, but they are better understood as a plea for them to be open with him, as he is being open with them, to be reasonable, to reflect seriously on what he is saying. Let them have the same feelings towards him and let suspicion and ill will be set aside.‘You have not injured me’. These words could refer back to the manner in which Paul had been received by the Galatians on his first visit – ‘I have no reason to be hostile towards you, because I can never forget the way in which you treated me when I came to you at first and preached to you’ – but that would be a serious understatement, for far from injuring him, he is about to say, they had received him as an angel of God. It is better to link the words to the present dispute. He says this to reassure them, in case they felt so alarmed at the thought of how they treated him that they concluded his words flowed only from anger. Paul assures them that though he is indeed concerned for them under God’s hand, he feels no resentment and does not consider himself to have suffered any personal injury.

Application

Paul does not ask any to do what he does not do himself. He sets the Galatians an example of openheartedness before requesting the same from them. Just as a father must be the first to show affection to a suspicious teenager, so a pastor must take the initiative to win back the trust of his flock when there is a breach between them.

As Calvin says, Paul is following the method he has recommended to Timothy, ‘Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine’ – always in control. The pastor must exercise great patience towards the wayward, and if the time comes that an offender has to be put out of the church because of failure to repent after warning and further warning, it is not because the pastor has run out of patience and has no more long-suffering left to show, but because the word of God requires that he exercise the final solemn step of discipline.

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Galatians 4:12 Commentary and Bible Study