A personal appeal. (4.12-20)

by Kent Leslie ✉️

I beg you, brothers and sisters. [Ga 4.12] Here we have a big ol’ appeal from Paul to the Galatians, based on the relationship he had with them. He’s reminding them of how they used to get along great before. So why is he the bad guy now?—just because he’s telling them the truth.

This is a technique of Greco-Roman rhetoric, in which Paul was trained: Appeal to your audience’s emotions. Nowadays we criticize speakers who try to sway our emotions, but Roman rhetoricians had no problem with doing that. If you’re on the right side, advocating for a righteous cause, they felt there was nothing wrong with it. Gotta do whatever it takes to win the debate!

To a point I agree; I would say it’s okay to appeal to both your audience’s reason and emotion. Pretty sure the Holy Spirit does it too. It’s just when there’s no reason on your side—or when you’re completely wrong—that an emotional appeal can be a very big problem.

This passage gives us a good idea about how frustrated Paul was with the Galatians: He’d taught them the truth when he was with them, and they listened. Now they weren’t, and it worried him.

A weakness of the flesh. [Ga 4.13] My physical condition was a trial for you. [Ga 4.14] If possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. [Ga 4.15] There are a lot of people who read these statements, and others, and suspect Paul had an eye or vision problem. Plus in Galatians 6.11, he mentions he writes in large letters.

Some figure Paul was farsighted, and struggled to read the bible in synagogue or church. Others figure Jesus did strike him blind when he first appeared to Paul, and maybe Paul’s eyes never fully recovered. We don’t know.

We do know the ancients knew about optics (or at least Euclid, Hero of Alexandria, and Claudius Ptolemy did), and there’s some evidence they used very basic lenses to magnify stuff. But otherwise eyeglasses weren’t invented till 1286. So if Paul had deficient eyes, he had to do the best he could despite his eyes.