Galatians 4:18

18 But [it is] right to be zealous at all times in what is right, and not only when I am present with you --

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 So I have become your enemy in speaking the truth to you?

17 They are not rightly zealous after you, but desire to shut you out [from us], that ye may be zealous after them.

18 But [it is] right to be zealous at all times in what is right, and not only when I am present with you --

19 my children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you:

20 and I should wish to be present with you now, and change my voice, for I am perplexed as to you.