Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Galatians 4:19

"My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you--" — Galatians 4:19 (ASV)

Paul now comes to his main point about the actions and motives of the legalizers: his own attitude to the Galatians was quite different. He had not come to them in order to build up his own personal following, as the false teachers had. He had come to help them—to see that they were born again and to labor for them until Christ himself should be formed in them. In calling the Galatians his “dear children” and in speaking of his labor “pains” on their behalf, Paul pictures himself as a mother who went through the pains of childbirth when they converted to Christ; he is now in labor again as the result of their apparent defection. He wants them to know that his present pastoral concern matches his evangelistic fervor; indeed, neither has diminished because of the Galatians’ listening to the legalizers.