I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. As you know, it was because of an infirmity of the flesh that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my condition was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. Where then is your blessing of me now? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. (Galatians 4:12-17)

Paul’s words in Galatians 4:15 have been twisted and mangled by generations of commentators until they barely resemble the truth. What he meant was not that he suffered from some chronic eye disease or that he carried malaria through Asia Minor as an object lesson in God’s refusal to heal. The statement is an idiom, a vivid expression of loyalty, the kind of speech that means “I would give my life for you.” The Galatians loved Paul so much that they would have torn out their own eyes for him. That is the point, and to force a diagnosis out of it is to miss the whole truth.

Paul himself explains why he preached to them in the first place: “It was because of an infirmity of the flesh that I first proclaimed the gospel to you.” Scholars have lined up to assign ailments such as malaria, epilepsy, ophthalmia, but none of these theories rest on Scripture. The only actual event that matches time, place, and description is already recorded: Paul’s stoning at Lystra in Acts 14. He was dragged outside the city and left for dead, a crumpled corpse in the eyes of his enemies. Stoning was not a matter of scratches and bruises. Stones were hurled with intent to crush skulls and cave in faces. Stephen was killed this way. Paul was subjected to the same execution until the mob was satisfied that life had left him. But the next verse records the astonishing fact: he got up and went back into the city. That is the infirmity he speaks of. He lingered in Galatia while recovering from a body that had been shattered, a face that must have looked hideous, a condition that could have been an intolerable trial for those who saw him. But the Galatians did not despise him. They welcomed him as if he were Christ Jesus himself. Their compassion was stirred not by a man with mild fever symptoms but by a mangled preacher, scarred and swollen, who should by all rights have been a corpse.

The text proclaims healing, not sickness. Paul was a walking testimony of survival. He had been left for dead and was still standing. His “infirmity” was the aftermath of execution, not chronic disease. His very presence before them was a miracle, not a medical case study. This reading is the only one anchored in Scripture. It lines up with his catalog of sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11, such as floggings, rods, shipwrecks, dangers, persecutions. It harmonizes with 2 Corinthians 12, where he boasts of “weakness.” That thorn in the flesh, like all biblical thorns, refers not to conditions of the body but to hostile persons, a messenger of Satan sent to torment him. His weakness was humiliation and battering, not sickness. The Lord’s answer, “My power is made perfect in weakness,” was fulfilled in his very survival, walking out of executions, recovering from lashings that should have killed him, surviving torments that would have destroyed others

To insist that Galatians 4 depicts an eye disease is intellectually incompetent and dishonest. It is the work of Pharisaical scholars who pore over the Bible like bumbling detectives, inventing illnesses so they can soothe their unbelief. They are more diligent in suppressing healing than in proclaiming it. They can sniff out the faintest manuscript variant but cannot connect two clear passages between Acts 14 and Galatians 4. They chase after sickness like pigs after slop, because the testimony of healing rebukes them. They investigate revivals instead of holding them. Instead of healing the sick, they interrogate the ones who are healed. They set traps for those who pray for the sick, just as the Pharisees did when they surrounded Jesus with questions meant to entangle. They have no power, so they mock those who do. But if you do not preach healing, you do not preach Christ. If you preach sickness, you are a liar and an imposter. Most preachers are liars and imposters.

The Galatians could not give Paul their eyes. Their devotion was real, but impotent. But there is One who has given more. Christ gave his life. And by his stripes we are healed. He bore our infirmities, he carried our diseases. Paul’s broken body, scarred and deformed by stones, was a living parable of the broken body of Christ. To despise him was to despise Christ. To welcome him was to welcome Christ. To reject the healing testimony in his flesh is to trample the blood of Jesus, who died not only to forgive sins but to heal sickness. Scholars who use Galatians 4 as a proof-text for divine refusal spit on the cross. They forbid others to receive what Christ purchased with his wounds. They pride themselves on erudition while robbing the church of faith.

Paul asks, “Where then is your blessing of me now?” The Galatians once welcomed him as an angel of God, now they treated him as an enemy. Why? Because he told them the truth. False teachers had slipped in with zeal, but it was a zeal to cut them off from Paul, so that they might be zealous for the deceivers. False zeal has not changed. The teachers of unbelief today are zealous for followers, not for Christ. They do not heal, they debate. They do not cast out demons, they investigate footnotes. They do not walk in the power of the Spirit, they sneer at those who do. And their disciples become just like them: powerless, joyless, faithless.

But Paul reminds us how the Galatians first received miracles: not by law, not by works, not by intellectual speculation, but by believing the message. “Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” They believed, and miracles flowed. That is the apostolic pattern, the true mark of faith. The same Spirit still works the same way. He does not anoint doctrines of sickness. He does not bless unbelief. He responds to faith in Christ, who bore sickness, carried disease, and heals today.

The passage is not a weapon for unbelief but a witness for healing. Paul was not a sickly apostle dragging his disease from city to city. He was a battered apostle, repeatedly executed, repeatedly raised by God’s power, repeatedly made strong in weakness. He walked back into cities where mobs had left him for dead. He preached while hideous and scarred. He lived as a sign of resurrection power. His testimony is not that God refused to heal, but that God repeatedly healed him from what should have killed him. To reduce this to malaria is an insult. To invent ophthalmia is a fraud. To preach sickness from this text is treachery.

“You would have given me your eyes.” They loved him in his brokenness because they saw Christ in him. We cannot give Paul our eyes, but we can give Christ our faith. And in return, we receive what he purchased: healing, deliverance, and life. This is the true reading of Galatians 4. This is the testimony of Acts 14. And this is the gospel: not sickness endured but healing received, not weakness as defeat but power perfected in weakness. Christ has given us more than his eyes; he has given us his life. Our part is to believe, give thanks, and receive.