Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

–Parallel verses:
Galatians‬ ‭2:20-21‬
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

Fire is an important element in our lives. Fire produces light, energy, and heat; it can refine or separate metal and purify it. Small fires in forests, when properly managed, can be good, as they clear out the underbrush and create a pathway for new growth. But when governments or people do not manage the forests and allow for regular removal and thinning of the trees, then the fires can become uncontrollable. The small fire becomes a massive forest fire. It is unyielding in its path to destruction, and many homes and people’s lives become endangered.
Zeal can be similar in its traits. I know some who are zealous about politics or the environment or how their children are treated at school. And these can be OK things in the proper place. The Jews were zealous about God’s law — this is actually a good thing in general. However, unbridled zeal can also become dangerous and grow out of control. How? When “what we are zealous for” takes 1st Place in our lives and replaces God and his plans. Paul says here that the zealousness of the Jews did not include a knowledge of God and his righteousness. It was based on their own contortions of the law, their additions to it that were man-made. And so they were zealous for their law, which was in part Godly, but they missed the Son of God right before their eyes, because their zealous hearts had become hardened.

In contrast, we have this passage in Corinthians where Paul proclaims: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God …”

This proclamation is an acknowledgement that he is not wise enough or smart enough to live a life with pure motives behind his zeal. If Paul was not wise enough, the man who, with God’s inspiration, wrote almost half of the New Testament, then why would I think I could be “wise enough”, without a close relationship to God? Paul was one of these Jews who, in his past life as Saul, had used the Jewish law to justify the killing of Christians. He had buried the grace of God in a deep hole. But now is is transformed and he says he will not set aside God’s grace, but consider it as he reads the law.

So a new kind of zeal was formed in Paul. Not one based on judgment and comparison with others, but one based on GRACIOUS ZEAL. He was passionate about God’s saving grace!
Lord, thank you for this example of Godly zeal in Paul. I seek to WIELD ZEAL WITH GRACE. Teach me to be humble, yet confident in your ways and continue to spread your love to a fallen world with zeal.