GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GALATIANS 4:12-14
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12 I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no harm. 13 As you know, it was because of a physical illness that I first preached the gospel to you. 14 Even though that illness tested you, you did not treat me with contempt or worse. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.
“You did me no harm.”
These words, as my sons would say, seem “a little random.” But if we take them according to what they say and also according to when they appear in the letter, they help us to explain some other things about Paul’s words. He is not just concerned about the Galatians, he is boiling over, agitated, upset, frightened, and agonizing over what was happening there and about being so far away that the only way to do anything was to write a letter that could take weeks to arrive.
He has been warning them about their doctrinal error, a mistake that could cost them dearly since it slapped away at Jesus and turned them to look to someone else (themselves) for salvation. He has hammered at this, pounded on it, shouted about it. But all the while, he shows that he loves them, that he longs to be there with them. He reminds them of the love of Christ in the Gospel (3:14-15; 3:26-29; 4:6-7). He has used tender words (3:9). He calls them “brothers” over and over (1:11; 3:15; 4:12). But then “his angry mood” returns, gaining the upper hand. He doesn’t want them to think that he is angry with them, his friends. He is angry with this false doctrine and with the Judaizers who were whispering to and deceiving the Galatians and destroying their peace, who twisted the gospel into a whip that was beating and lashing at his dear Galatians and ruining their faith.
But now while his dander is up, he catches himself again. “You did me no harm.” And more than that, he recalls his first meeting with them. In his travels, one of two things happened to Paul as he entered Galatia. Either he was on his way through Asia Minor and became ill while in Galatia (so Koehler), or else he was so ill that he was brought to Galatia to recover (more about this when we read verse 15). But the main point is not the illness so much as their compassion and friendship. His illness could have been and really was a burden on them, but as he regained his strength he preached, and they were brought to faith in Christ. What a marvelous God we have, who cares for us while placing us just where he needs us to serve him! With unbelievers, illnesses are punishments to cause them grief so that the gospel might have soil in which to grow. With believers, illnesses can be the Spirit’s admonitions “to turn us from unrighteousness to righteousness, since sometimes when we sin we don’t know it” (2 Clement 19:2). But with the repentant servant of God, an illness might be a means to an unexpected opportunity. What strange pulpits the Holy Spirit sets his ministers into! Paul’s sickbed brought the gospel to Galatia. It would be joined in the list of Paul’s strange pulpits with the jail cells in Philippi and Rome (Acts 16:26-32; Acts 28:16-24), the dining room in Antioch where he preached to Peter’s face (Galatians 2:11), and the wreckage of the ship that was beaten to splinters in the surf at Malta (Acts 27:33-35).
Whatever Paul’s illness, his new friends the Galatians did not treat him badly. “Not with contempt,” he says, “or spitting” (but I have translated this as “or worse” so as not to offend people). No Greek student needs a lexicon to guess at the meaning of ek-ptyo, the very sound of spitting, which was a sign of disdain or was even used to ward off evil spirits (or a way to blow out a small fire ). For the Galatians treated Paul in the opposite way: like an angel of God! While they tended this stranger’s needs, Paul couldn’t help but remember the passage in Moses about the way Abraham and Sarah behaved when three strangers appeared at their tent flap– strangers who turned out to be God himself and two angels (Genesis 18:1-5; 18:10). Paul was all at once humbled and delighted. Their infant faith was already blossoming into good works that would put older and larger churches to shame. Paul wanted only to feed their faith and to protect them from false teaching.
Outside my office window there is a bird feeder that I try to keep filled. The most frequent visitors are common house sparrows. I have a great affection for those birds. Many people, even bird watchers, ignore them, either because they are too common or too plain or too ordinary to care about. Other people want to see cardinals and woodpeckers and bluebirds and things. But I like my sparrows. They remind me of myself: not flashy, but common, ordinary, and ignored by many. Yet they have a place in God’s heart. He sees them and takes care of them (Psalm 84:3; Matthew 10:29). “Not one of them is forgotten by God” (Luke 12:6). Bigger and more popular birds come to my feeder, too, but the sparrows always get their breakfast and their dinner. “The righteous man sees to the needs of his animal” (Proverbs 12:10), and the Lord takes care of the needs of us all.
Sometimes we need rebuking and correcting; other times we need training in righteousness. But the Scriptures are useful for all of those things, and many other things as well (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Galatians 4:12-14 Another strange pulpit