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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Galatians · About this commentary

Let Us Not Grow Weary

Galatians 6:9-10

9 Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season if we don’t give up. · WEB


The harvest principle is turned into an argument against giving up, and the timing is the part left in someone else's hands.

Let us not be weary in doing good. The verb describes the exhaustion of losing heart rather than of physical tiredness, and the first person plural includes the writer. Paul has just described being in labor over these churches a second time Galatians 4:19; he is not addressing a weariness he has not felt.

The reason given is the sowing principle of the previous verse, with one term added: we will reap in due season. The harvest is certain and the date is not disclosed. That is precisely the condition under which people give up — not doubt about the outcome, but the length of the wait.

And the condition attached is the only one: if we don't give up. The letter makes continuance the whole requirement. Nothing is said about scale, success, or visible result.

Verse 10 turns the principle into policy, and the order matters. As we have opportunity, let us do what is good toward all men — universal reach, with a qualifier that keeps it practical rather than boundless. Then: and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.

The priority is stated without apology and without exclusion. Those nearest have the first claim; nobody is outside the field. In a letter that has spent six chapters arguing that gentiles need not become Jews to belong, the phrase household of the faith is doing quiet work — the family is defined by the thing the whole letter has been defending, and by nothing else.

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