Gálatas 4:18

18 Es bueno mostrar celo con buena intención siempre, y no sólo cuando yo estoy presente con vosotros.

Gálatas 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.

Gálatas 4:18 In-Context

16 ¿Me he vuelto, por tanto, vuestro enemigo al deciros la verdad?

17 Ellos os tienen celo, no con buena intención, sino que quieren excluiros a fin de que mostréis celo por ellos.

18 Es bueno mostrar celo con buena intención siempre, y no sólo cuando yo estoy presente con vosotros.

19 Hijos míos, por quienes de nuevo sufro dolores de parto hasta que Cristo sea formado en vosotros,

20 quisiera estar presente con vosotros ahora y cambiar mi tono, pues perplejo estoy en cuanto a vosotros.