Galatians 4:13
The gospel preached in weakness
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγελίζομαι euangelizomai · to speak good news
Original
Translations
You know that it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
and you have known that through weakness of the flesh I proclaimed good news to you at the first,
내가 처음에 육체의 약함을 인하여 너희에게 복음을 전한 것을 너희가 아는 바라
너희가 알거니와 내가 처음에 육체의 연약함을 통해 너희에게 복음을 선포하였노라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Gal 4:12-18 as a whole
The apostle desires that they would be of one mind with him respecting the law of Moses, as well as united with him in love. In reproving others, we should take care to convince them that our reproofs are from sincere regard to the honour of God and religion and their welfare. …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley Gal 4:13
I preached to you, notwithstanding infirmity of the flesh - That is, notwithstanding bodily weakness, and under great disadvantage from the despicableness of my outward appearance.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Midway through chapter 4 Paul's tone changes. He sets the argument down, writes "I beg you, brothers" (Galatians 4:12), and recalls the day they first met. His first preaching in Galatia, he reminds them, had to do with an illness.
The verb is in the aorist, euēngelisamēn, "I preached the gospel," looking back on that first preaching as one event. The phrase before it, di' astheneian tēs sarkos, uses dia with the accusative, which normally means "because of." Read that way, Paul did not preach in spite of an illness but because of one: perhaps sickness kept him in the region, and so the gospel was preached there. To proteron, "first," may simply mean "originally," or it may mark the first of two visits; Acts records that Paul passed through the region of Galatia more than once (Acts 16:6, Acts 18:23).
The KJV's "through infirmity of the flesh" can be read as "in weakness" or as "by means of weakness"; the BSB's "because of an illness" follows the usual sense of the construction. Wesley takes it as preaching "notwithstanding bodily weakness, and under great disadvantage from the despicableness of my outward appearance" Wesley.
What the illness was, no one knows. Because Paul adds that they would have "torn out your eyes and given them to me" (Galatians 4:15), some think of trouble with his eyes; Wesley links it with his "thorn in the flesh" Wesley (2 Corinthians 12:7). Neither is certain. Where these churches were is also debated: in the southern cities of the Roman province of Galatia, where Paul and Barnabas preached on their first journey (Acts 14:6–7), or in the land of the Galatian people farther north (Acts 16:6).
The illness was a trial to the Galatians too, yet they "did not despise or reject me"; they received the sick man "as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus Himself" (Galatians 4:14). What they honoured was the news he carried. Matthew Henry sees both sides of the memory: "The apostle reminds the Galatians of the difficulty under which he laboured when he first came among them. But he notices, that he was a welcome messenger to them" Matthew Henry. And then: "Yet how very uncertain are the favour and respect of men!" Matthew Henry.
The gospel reached Galatia not by a strong preacher's triumph but by way of a sick man's illness. "My power is perfected in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9): the verse shows the gospel taking its messenger's weakness as its road rather than its roadblock.