Galatians 4:12 - Paul the Beggar

"Be coming to be as I, since (I) also as you, brothers, I am begging you.  Nothing me you did harm."

-Paul now is begging these Galatians, and he calls them brothers again, which is not just a label.  He is appealing to them out of relationship.  And that right there is the key to ministry, to making a lasting difference in the lives of others - relationship.  It is rightly said that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.  That’s relationship.  And Paul cared.  Sometimes you beg because you care.  It is earnest asking, born out of desperate need or want.  You earnestly and desperately want something from someone - or in this case FOR them, and you feel like you have no other choice.  Begging is when you’re out of options, when you have no other recourse.  It’s the last resort.  And what you want for them they are in danger of missing.  So you’re reduced to begging.  Because you care.  Paul in all probability had had many opportunities to demonstrate to the Galatians that he cared.  He had fathered them in the faith to begin with, he had no doubt cared for them like a gentle mother in helping them to follow Christ, and very likely had served alongside them like a brother as he helped to launch their assembly into self-sufficient Christian living and ministry (cf 1Thessalonians 2.11, 2.7, 2.9).  They were family.  And family is forever.  And if you care about them (which you should all the more), when the stakes are high, when the opportunity is great, when the situation is desperate, sometimes you will gladly beg.

-We surmise that Paul does not hesitate to beg in his praying to the Lord (Romans 1.10, 1Thessalonians 3.10), but he does seem somewhat loathe to do so with people.  For all his instructing and exhorting and urging only two other times in all of his letters does he employ this word towards people.  But in begging, in urging these his children in the faith to resist legalism, Paul reminds them that he had done the exact same thing which he is begging them to do.  He himself had become "like the Gentiles", in that he threw off the Jewish law as the way to earn and maintain right standing with God.  In this respect they now needed to become (and remain) like him.  They desperately needed to avoid at all costs any hint of trying to curry God’s favor through self-effort of any kind.  As do we all.  We all like Paul stand before the throne of heaven as spiritual beggars, bringing nothing at all to the table, all of us saved by grace through faith alone.  And we journey on thru the same, leaning not in the least on our own efforts or strength or understanding.  Apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15.5).  And that’s the good news!