Galatians 4

Galatians 4:1

How remarkable are these words! Each is loaded with matter and increases all the way it goes. All grace - Every kind of blessing. That ye may abound to every good work - God gives us everything, that we may do good therewith, and so receive more blessings. All things in this life, even rewards, are, to the faithful, seeds in order to a future harvest. Proverbs 22:9

Galatians 4:2

He hath scattered abroad - (A generous word.) With a full hand, without any anxious thought which way each grain falls. His righteousness - His beneficence, with the blessed effects of it. Remaineth for ever - Unexhausted, God still renewing his store. Psalms 112:9

Galatians 4:3

And he who supplieth seed - Opportunity and ability to help others. And bread - All things needful for your own souls and bodies. Will continually supply you with that seed, yea, multiply it to you more and more. And increase the fruits of your righteousness - The happy effects of your love to God and man. Isaiah 55:10

Galatians 4:4

Which worketh by us thanksgiving to God - Both from us who distribute, and them who receive, your bounty.

Galatians 4:6

Your avowed subjection - Openly testified by your actions. To all men - Who stand in need of it.

Galatians 4:8

His unspeakable gift - His outward and inward blessings, the number and excellence of which cannot he uttered.

Galatians 4:10

Now I Paul myself - - A strongly emphatical expression. Who when present am base among you - So, probably, some of the false teachers affirmed. Copying after the meekness and gentleness of Christ, entreat - Though I might command you.

Galatians 4:11

Do not constrain me when present to be bold - To exert my apostolical authority. Who think of us as walking after the flesh - As acting in a cowardly or crafty manner.

Galatians 4:12

Though we walk in the flesh - In mortal bodies, and, consequently, are not free from human weakness. Yet we do not war - Against the world and the devil. After the flesh - By any carnal or worldly methods. Though the apostle here, and in several other parts of this epistle, speaks in the plural number, for the sake of modesty and decency, yet he principally means himself. On him were these reflections thrown, and it is his own authority which he is vindicating.

Galatians 4:13

For the weapons of our warfare - Those we use in this war. Are not carnal - But spiritual, and therefore mighty to the throwing down of strong holds - Of all the difficulties which men or devils can raise in our way. Though faith and prayer belong also to the Christian armour, Ephesians 6:15, &c., yet the word of God seems to be here chiefly intended.

Galatians 4:14

Destroying all vain reasonings, and every high thing which exalteth itself - As a wall or rampart. Against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought - Or, rather, faculty of the mind. Into captivity to the obedience of Christ - Those evil reasonings are destroyed. The mind itself, being overcome and taken captive, lays down all authority of its own, and entirely gives itself up to perform, for the time to come, to Christ its conqueror the obedience of faith.

Galatians 4:15

Being in readiness to avenge all disobedience - Not only by spiritual censure, but miraculous punishments. When your obedience is fulfilled - When the sound part of you have given proof of your obedience, so that I am in no danger of punishing the innocent with the guilty.

Galatians 4:16

Do ye look at the outward appearance of things - Does any of you judge of a minister of Christ by his person, or any outward circumstance? Let him again think this of himself - Let him learn it from his own reflection, before I convince him by a severer method.

Galatians 4:17

I should not be ashamed - As having said more than I could make good.

Galatians 4:18

I say this, that I may not seem to terrify you by letters - Threatening more than I can perform.

Galatians 4:19

His bodily presence is weak - His stature, says St. Chrysostom, was low, his body crooked, and his head bald.

Galatians 4:21

For we presume not - A strong irony. To equal ourselves - As partners of the same office. Or to compare ourselves - As partakers of the same labour. They among themselves limiting themselves - Choosing and limiting their provinces according to their own fancy.

Galatians 4:22

But we will not, like them, boastingly extend ourselves beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the province which God hath allotted us - To me, in particular, as the apostle of the gentiles. A measure which reaches even unto you - God allotted to each apostle his province, and the measure or bounds thereof.

Galatians 4:23

We are come even to you - By a gradual, regular process, having taken the intermediate places in our way, in preaching the gospel of Christ.

Galatians 4:24

Having hope, now your faith is increased - So that you can the better spare us. To be enlarged by you abundantly - That is, enabled by you to go still further.

Galatians 4:25

In the regions beyond you - To the west and south, where the gospel had not yet been preached.

Galatians 4:29

I wish ye would bear - So does he pave the way for what might otherwise have given offence. With my folly - Of commending myself; which to many may appear folly; and really would be so, were it not on this occasion absolutely necessary.

Galatians 4:30

For - The cause of his seeming folly is expressed in this and the following verse; the cause why they should bear with him, 2 Corinthians 11:4.

Galatians 4:31

But I fear - Love is full of these fears. Lest as the serpent - A most apposite comparison. Deceived Eve - Simple, ignorant of evil. By his subtilty - Which is in the highest degree dangerous to such a disposition. So your minds - We might therefore be tempted, even if there were no sin in us. Might be corrupted - Losing their virginal purity. From the simplicity that is in Christ - That simplicity which is lovingly intent on him alone, seeking no other person or thing.