ガラテヤの信徒への手紙4:16-18 Galatians 4:16-18,

わたしがあなたがたのもとにいる場合だけに限らず、いつでも、善意から熱心に慕われるのは、よいことです（ガラテヤ4:18）

17節でパウロは「あの者たちがあなたがたに対して熱心になるのは、善意からではありません。かえって、自分たちに対して熱心にならせようとして、あなたがたを引き離したいのです」と記しています。「あの者たち」とは、パウロの後から来て「キリストを信じるだけでなく、旧約聖書の律法で定められた割礼の儀式を受けなければ完全な救いは得られない」と教えた伝道者たちのことです。「あの者たち」は「自分たちに対して熱心にならせようとして」ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちに熱心に働きかけました。そして、それは「あなたがたを引き離したい」とあるように、ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちをパウロから引き離そうとすることでもあったのです。「熱心になる」と翻訳されているゼーロオーというギリシア語の動詞は、男と女の関係で相手を性的に求めることや、先生と生徒の関係で先生が生徒を得ようと求めること、また生徒が先生に忠実であろうとすることに用いられる言葉です。つまり、パウロの後から来た伝道者たちは、「善意から」伝道していたのではなく、ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちをパウロから引き離して、自分たちに忠実な信徒たちにしようとしたということです。（中略）

自己中心的な動機で熱心であった伝道者たちとは対照的に、パウロは「善意から」ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちに熱心でした。「善意から熱心に慕われる」というのは、ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちがパウロによって「善意から熱心に慕われる」ということです。すなわち、パウロが「人はキリストを信じる信仰によって救われる」という真理を伝えてガラテヤの人々を救いへと導こうとしたことが「善意」なのです。ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちは、そのような「善意」によって、パウロに「熱心に慕われ」ていました。「熱心に慕われる」というと、パウロが信徒たちから「熱心に慕われる」という意味にも聞こえますが、この場合はそうではありません。信徒たちがパウロから「熱心に慕われる」という意味なのです。残念ながらこの日本語の翻訳は、わかりにくい翻訳になっています。2018年に日本聖書協会が出版した新しい翻訳は、この箇所を「良いことで熱心に慕われるのは、いつであっても良いことです。それは、私があなたがたのもとにいる時だけではありません」と翻訳しています。こちらの方がわかりやすいでしょう。パウロはこの手紙を書いているとき、ガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちとは離れた場所にいました。離れた場所にいても、パウロはガラテヤの諸教会の信徒たちを熱心に慕っていました。そこで、私があなたがたを熱心に慕っているのは「私があなたがたのもとにいる時だけではありません」と述べているのです。

（2月4日の説教より）

Almost 29 years ago, on 20 March 1995, the nerve agent Sarin was sprayed on the Tokyo underground system, killing 14 people and injuring some 6,300. The fact that the perpetrators of this sarin gas attack on the underground were members of the cult Aum Shinrikyo religious group gave many in Japan the impression that religion was dangerous. Cult religions and traditional religions are completely different, but to many people in Japan who do not believe in a particular religion, both are so-called “religions.” The year before last, in 2022, the issue of the former Unification Church, now the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, became widely known, triggered by the shooting murder of former Prime Minister ABE Shinzo. The murderer’s mother was a devoted member of the former Unification Church, and her family was destroyed because she made a large donation, estimated at 100 million yen, to the former Unification Church. The murderer therefore harboured a strong grudge against the old Unification Church. He then decided to kill Mr. ABE after seeing a video message of support sent by former Prime Minister ABE to a conference organised by the Universal Peace Federation, an affiliate of the former Unification Church.

In addition, a major issue in the media last year 2023 was the issue of abuse of children in the Christian cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A team of lawyers working on the issue of Jehovah’s Witnesses conducted an internet survey of believers and former believers between May and June last year. The results showed that of the 581 people who responded, more than 80% of those under the age of 18 who had participated in the activities of this cult, had a card indicating their intention to refuse blood transfusions, and more than 90% had received a “whipping” by beating with bare hands, rulers or belts (Asahi Shimbun, 21 November 2023 morning edition). Refusal of blood transfusions and “whippings” are probably carried out because they ignore academic studies on biblical interpretation and interpret the Bible according to their own standards and apply them literally to their followers.

The problem with these cults is that they have probably taught people a lesson: “Don’t be zealous in religion.” Indeed, with regard to zeal in religion, it is necessary to consider dispassionately the motives of why one is zealous. In other words, if a person or group is driving their followers to be zealous for self-centred motives, such as to increase their own power, to increase their own wealth, or because only their own teachings are correct, then this is a big problem.

However, not all zeal in religion is such self-centredness. For example, the writer MIURA Ayako was an ardent Christian. And her zeal was motivated by her desire to share with others the certainty of Christian salvation that she had experienced in her own walk of life. Ms. MIURA had a strong experience of frustration as a primary school teacher during the Second World War, when she gave children a nationalist education that taught “Be a citizen before you are a human being,” and this education was completely rejected with the defeat of the war. Not only that, she spent her youth in a long period of recuperation from pulmonary tuberculosis and spinal caries, which lasted 13 years. Through these hardships, she came to realise that mankind has the essential problems of sin and death, and was saved by encountering the Christian faith as the solution to these problems. Her motivation to share that salvation with others motivated her to become a passionate Christian writer.

When we think of someone who zealously proclaimed the salvation of Christ, we first think of the Apostle Paul. Before Paul believed in Christ, he was a zealous Jewish teacher who persecuted Christians. To persecute Christians, he travelled from Jerusalem to Damascus. On his way there, he heard the voice of the risen Christ in heaven speaking to him with a strong light, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4; 22:7) “Saul” is Paul’s Jewish name. Paul fell to the ground, blinded, unable to eat or drink, and was taken to Damascus. He was then baptised in Damascus by a Christian called Ananias, converted and became a Christian evangelist proclaiming Jesus Christ. This experience is described in the Acts 26:16-18, where Paul was addressed by the risen Christ in heaven as follows.

“But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

Having thus become a Christian evangelist, Paul became a zealous preacher of the gospel of Christ. Paul describes the wonder of the salvation he had received in Philippians 3:8-9 as follows.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

When Paul was persecuting Christians as a Jewish teacher, the motivation for his zeal was that he was a righteous man who kept God’s law – so-called self-justification. But when he became a Christian evangelist and began to preach the gospel of Christ, his zeal was motivated by the wonder of salvation through justification by faith in Christ, or faith-justification. Paul was convinced that it was his mission given to him by Christ to proclaim this wonderful salvation to many people, and this is why he was so zealous in his evangelism.

Paul began his first missionary journey in 47AD, when he and Barnabas preached the gospel of Christ on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and in what is now Turkey. This is described in the Acts of the Apostles 13:4 to the end of chapter 14. In particular, the evangelisation of various parts of Turkey is described in detail, with the birth of believers in Christ in Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium and Lystra. However, after Paul and Barnabas left, other evangelists entered these churches. These evangelists taught the believers differently from Paul. They taught that Christians must not only believe in Christ, but also keep the Old Testament law. The evangelists particularly emphasised the need to undergo the ritual of circumcision, which is commanded in the Old Testament law. In other words, they taught that “not only must one believe in Christ, but one must also undergo the ritual of circumcision as prescribed by the Old Testament law to attain full salvation.”

This teaching was very confusing to Gentile believers, i.e., non-Jewish believers who had come to the Christian faith. Gentile believers then came to believe that they too had to undergo the ritual of circumcision. Not only that, but they even began to think that they had to observe the Sabbath, the various festivals and years of rest as prescribed in the Old Testament law, or they would not be able to attain full salvation. Therefore, Paul says in 4:10-11: “You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” If the believers in the Galatian churches believe that they must keep the Old Testament law in order to attain full salvation, then Paul’s efforts to teach them that “human beings are saved by faith in Christ,” even Paul’s efforts to have taken pains to teach them that they were saved by faith in Christ, seem to have been in vain.

In verse 16 of today’s passage, Paul asks the Galatian believers, “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” By “the truth” he means the truth that “human beings are saved by faith in Christ.” “Become your enemy” refers to the fact that the Galatians were misled by the evangelists who came after Paul, and began to hold ideas contrary to what Paul had taught. When the Galatians first met Paul, they received him “as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus,” as verse 14 says. Not only that, but they accepted Paul’s teaching with such fervour that if possible, they would have gouged out their eyes and given them to Paul, as verse 15 says. However, the influence of the evangelists who came after Paul caused the hearts of the Galatian believers to turn away from Paul.

In verse 17, Paul says: “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 have zeal for them” (NIV 2011). “Those people” are the evangelists who came after Paul and taught that “you must not only believe in Christ, but also undergo the ritual of circumcision as prescribed by the Old Testament law in order to attain full salvation.” “Those people” worked zealously on the believers of the Galatian churches so that Galatian believers may have zeal for them. And it was also an attempt to alienate the Galatian believers from Paul, as it says, “what they want is to alienate you from us.” The Greek verb zēloō (ζηλόω), translated “to be zealous,” is used in the relationship between a man and a woman to seek the other sexually, and in the relationship between a teacher and a student for the teacher to gain the student, and for the student to try to be faithful to the teacher. In other words, the evangelists who came after Paul were not evangelising “for no good,” but were trying to alienate the Galatian believers from Paul and make them faithful to themselves.

What, then, was the deeper motive of the evangelists who came after Paul to turn the Galatian believers into faithful to themselves? We can only speculate, as the passage does not give a deeper motive. The evangelists who came after Paul were probably Jewish Christians from the church in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem was persecuted by Jews who did not believe in Christ. In particular, the end of the 40s and beginning of the 50s AD was a period of increasing pressure on the Christian churches by the Zealots. The Zealots were so-called extremists who wanted to defeat the Roman Empire by force and win the independence of the Jewish nation. If the Christian churches insisted that “human beings are saved by faith in Christ” and did not have to undergo the circumcision ritual observed by the Jews, there was a danger that the Zealots would become even more intense in their attacks on the churches in Jerusalem. Jewish Christians from the Jerusalem church even went to the church in Antioch in the Syrian province, where there were many Gentile Christians, to persuade Peter, the leader of the Jerusalem church who was then in Antioch, not to fellowship with the Gentile Christians. In other words, it is assumed that the evangelists who came after Paul were trying to make the Galatian believers into those who respected the ritual of circumcision as much as they did, so that they and the believers of the Jerusalem church would not be persecuted by the Jews.

In contrast to the evangelists, who were zealous for such self-centred motives, Paul was zealous for the Galatian believers for good purpose. This is stated in verse 18: “It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you” (NIV 2011). By “to be zealous” Paul means that he was zealous for the Galatian believers. In other words, Paul’s attempt to lead the Galatians to salvation by preaching the truth that “human beings are saved by faith in Christ” was for good purpose. Unfortunately, the Japanese translation which we use is difficult to understand; a new translation published by the Japan Bible Society in 2018 renders this verse as “It is always good to be zealously adored for good. It is not only when I am with you.” This is easier to understand. Paul was at a distance from the Galatian believers when he wrote this letter. Even at a distance, Paul still zealously adored the believers of the churches of Galatia and was longing for them. So he says, “to be so always, not just when I am with you.”

A careful study of today’s Bible verses has enabled us to see that Paul’s motives for evangelising zealously were different from the motives of the evangelists who taught differently from Paul. Paul’s motive was to lead people to salvation by preaching the truth that “human beings are saved by faith in Christ.” However, the motives of evangelists who taught differently were self-centred, perhaps in an attempt to increase the number of believers who shared their views so that they would not be persecuted. It would be impossible to divide those who evangelise today as clearly in black and white as in today’s biblical passage. However, if you look carefully at those who evangelise, you can sometimes see which motive is stronger in them: the motive to genuinely proclaim Christ’s salvation or the motive to pursue their own interests, status and gratification. And, unfortunately, when a person with a strong self-centred motive is invited as a pastor, the church which invites him/her will crumble. On the contrary, when a person with a strong motivation to genuinely proclaim Christ’s salvation is invited as a pastor, the church itself will grow as a community of faith that genuinely proclaims Christ’s salvation.