Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Philippians 3:18

Philippians 3:18. For many walk of whom I have told you often. These are the men who offend in an opposite way to the Judaizers. We hear much of them in the Epistles, how in their boastfulness of superior knowledge they held themselves at liberty to indulge their fleshly appetites. Their wicked character is shown in its fuller development in such Epistles as 2 Peter and Jude, but the ‘knowledge falsely so called' was doing its pernicious work long before, and the indulgence of all the fleshly appetites was a characteristic of the Gnostics from first to last. Whether the frequent warnings to which St. Paul here alludes were needed even when he first visited Philippi, or whether they had been given subsequently, we cannot decide, though the word ‘often' gives some colour to the tradition already alluded to that St. Paul had previously sent an Epistle to Philippi.

and now tell you even weeping. Tears that are shed for the evil which these men will work, and also for the fate which is in store for such offenders. The apostle hates the sin, as we may see from the strong words which he soon writes, but yet he is moved to weeping for the sinners.

that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Such men are the greatest adversaries to the Christian cause. They are nominally Christians, but refuse to bear the cross or to have any fellowship in Christ's sufferings, and thus they prove worse foes than bitter opponents would be. They lead astray the weak by the tempting promises of liberty, which appeal so powerfully to the carnal part of man; and they also give occasion to others, who hate Christ's cause, to blaspheme the whole Christian Church because of these false brethren. Thus their injury operates in two ways, within and without the Church.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Philippians 3:18

Old Testament

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