Galatians 4:18

18 It is always an honourable thing to be courted in an honourable cause; always, and not only when I am with you, my children--

Galatians 4:18 Meaning and Commentary

Galatians 4:18

But it is good to be zealously affected
A zealous affection when right is very commendable, as the instances of Phinehas, Elijah, John the Baptist, and our Lord Jesus Christ show, and a contrary spirit is very disagreeable. But then it must be expressed

in a good thing;
in a good cause, for God, and the things of Christ; for the Gospel, and the ordinances of it, and for the discipline of God's house, and against immorality and profaneness, errors and heresies: and it should be "always"; not at certain times, and upon some particular accounts, but it should be constant, and always continue; it should be ever the same towards God, Christ, and his ministers:

and not only when I am present with you;
by which the apostle suggests, that while he was with them they were zealously attached to him and truth; but no sooner was he gone from them, but their zealous affection abated, and was fixed on others, which discovered their weakness, fickleness, and inconstancy; whereas he was always the same to them, and bore the same love to them, as the following words show.

Galatians 4:18 In-Context

16 Can it be that I have become your enemy through speaking the truth to you?

17 These men pay court to you, but not with honourable motives. They want to exclude you, so that you may pay court to them.

18 It is always an honourable thing to be courted in an honourable cause; always, and not only when I am with you, my children--

19 you for whom I am again, as it were, undergoing the pains of childbirth, until Christ is fully formed within you.

20 Would that I were with you and could change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.