Galatians 4:18 - Beautifully zesty

"But beautiful [it is] to be zealous-ing in beautiful always, and not only in the to be present me with you."

-Zeal can be a beautiful thing, Paul says.  The legalizers were "zealous-ing" the Galatians, but not beautifully.  They had those ugly ulterior motives.  But no, there is nothing at all wrong with zeal.  It means to boil, be hot or heated up over something.  Nothing wrong with the heat itself - it is the object of the heat, and how you direct the heat.  If do right, no can defense.  Today many would suggest that zeal is not good.  Extremism.  Fanaticism.  Foolish freakism.  Don’t want those, right?  Don’t wanna overdo it, go overboard or something crazy.  All things in moderation, right?  Actually, to avoid such extremes, such as cold or hot, renders one lukewarm, which state was roundly criticized by Christ Himself.  "Because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3.15)  A foul taste in the mouth of the Lord is a lukewarm heart - when such ‘moderation’ is directed at Him.  Ambivalent.  Equivocal.  On the fence.  Vacillating.  Wavering.  Both feet firmly planted in middair - because you are on the fence and they can’t reach the ground!  About Him, we must have no equivocation...!

-This Greek word for zeal also gives us our English word "zest" - great enthusiasm and energy.  God-forbid that we should so ‘moderate in all things’ that the zest goes out of our lives.  Enthusiasms.  Enthusiasms.  Surely we all have them.  Those things which get us excited and towards which we direct our energy?  The point is, there are some things which deserve zesty, zealous enthusiasm.  In some quarters, we must go all in and all out, we must go to extremes.  The person, the stakes, the cause is too great for moderation, for ambivalence, for just a little dab’ll-do-ya.  Jesus is one of those.  Our Savior, our Lord, our King, the King of Kings wants and deserves nothing less than all of us, all in and all out.

-There are a few different interpretations of this verse, apparently.  If the verb is taken as passive, then Paul is pointing out that it is always beautiful to have someone be zealous over you (to be zealous-ed) in a beautiful way.  Which the legalizers were not, trying as they were to enslave these believers to works.  Paul's zeal for the Galatians WAS beautiful, however he was not with them, and therein lay part of the problem, in that he was not there to zealously shepherd them and protect them from wiley wooly wolves and other charlatans.  If however the verb is taken in the middle voice, Paul would be saying that zeal (zealous-ing) can be beautiful, and the Galatians really need to redirect themselves to be beautifully zesty, on fire and zealous for Jesus (Revelation 3.19) and for the true Gospel of grace in Christ.  Zealous for what is good (1Peter 3.13), for good deeds (Titus 2.14), for love and spiritual gifts (1Corinthians 14.1).  And they need to learn to do so even when Paul is absent.  May we each find a similar grace and zest...