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Galatians 4:13 13<\/span><\/sup>You know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at the first. Truth to Learn We tend to evaluate those who minister to us based on external factors. Instead, we should evaluate them on how close they stick to the truth and on how lovingly they deliver that truth to us, whether it hurts or not.<\/p>\n Behind the Words<\/span><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBecause of<\/span><\/em>\u201d is translated from the Greek word \u201cdia,<\/span><\/em>\u201d which is a preposition denoting the channel of an act or action. Its most basic meaning is through<\/em>. Paul did not minister to the Galatians as a result of infirmity but in spite of it.<\/p>\n The word translated \u201cinfirmity<\/span><\/em>\u201d is \u201castheneia,<\/span><\/em>\u201d which is made up of \u201ca<\/span><\/em>,\u201d meaning not<\/em> or without<\/em>, and a form of \u201csthenos<\/span><\/em>,\u201d meaning strength<\/em>. Hence, it literally means without strength<\/em>. This is the most comprehensive word used in Greek in reference to physical sickness of any kind. Paul makes an even stronger statement as to his physical infirmity by saying that it is \u201ct\u0113s sarkos,<\/span><\/em>\u201d meaning of the body<\/em>.<\/p>\n In Greek the word \u201cpro<\/span><\/em>\u201d means before or in front of. There are comparative (more than another) and superlative (the most of several) forms of this word of which \u201cproteron<\/span><\/em>\u201d is the comparative. Hence, Paul is making reference to the former time<\/em> in which he preached the gospel message to the Galatians. He may also be making a reference to the fact that he preached the gospel message to them before these false teachers taught their heresy to them.<\/p>\n Meaning Explained In the previous verse Paul told the Galatians \u201cyou have not injured me at all.<\/span><\/em>\u201d As we mentioned in our discussion of that verse, Paul is letting them know that he doesn\u2019t take personal their apparent rejection of his preaching. In fact, he will show in this verse and the following that he was fully aware of the kindness that the Galatians showed to him when he first began to minister among them.<\/p>\n He reminds them here that he labored among them in preaching the gospel in the midst of physical infirmity. We are not told specifically what this infirmity was. Some believe that it was an eye infection that plagued him repeatedly while others believe that he was beset with recurring headaches. Whatever the malady, it very well may have been the thorn in the flesh that he talked about in 2 Corinthians:<\/p>\n 2 Corinthians 12:7<\/span><\/strong> <\/span>7<\/span><\/sup><\/strong>And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n And, in the next verse we will see that the Galatians were very kind to him and received him and his message in spite of the physical problems that he was facing.<\/p>\n Application We are all guilty of judging people by how they look and how they make us feel. The most popular people tend to be the ones who are the most attractive and physically fit. And, the best liked preachers tend to be the ones who make us feel good.<\/p>\n In reality, the best ministers of the gospel are the ones who tell us the truth, in love, even when it hurts.<\/p>\n In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2007 <\/span>Will <\/span>Krause. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone (618) 614-3070 and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Galatians 4:13 13You know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at the first. Truth to Learn We tend to evaluate those who minister to us based on external factors. Instead, we should evaluate them on how close they stick to the truth and on how lovingly they deliver that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galatians-4"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"signature\"](\"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/signature.gif\")
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