148 [Different views are held as to the connection of this with the preceding. Lightfoot says the connection is this: "I spoke of bearing one another burdens. There is one special application I would make of this rule; provide for the wants of your teachers. De/ arrests a former topic before it passes out of sight." (Compare 4:20.) But Ellicott takes a different view and says: "The duty of sharing their temporal blessings with their teacher is placed in contrast with the foregoing declaration of individual responsibility in spiritual matter." So also Meyer who, however, refers it to moral good.-G. A.]
149 [Dislocated by Chrysostom. This is a part of verse 9, and is an encouragement not to become weary in below sowing to the Spirit.- Meyer.-G. A.]
150 [Meyer, understanding "all good things" to mean every thing that is morally good, says, that this is a warning to the readers, in respect to this necessary moral fellowship not to allow themselves to be led astray (by the teachers of error or otherwise). Lightfoot and Schaff refer this warning to the consequences of failure to share their temporal blessings with their teachers. Ellicott says, "Verse 7 is a continuation of the subject in a more general and extended way but not without reference to the special command which immediately precedes."-G. A.]
151 [Ellicott hesitatingly adopts this view also. So Alford and Riddle (in Lange). But Meyer, Schaff, Schmoller (in Lange) and Lightfoot say that e@graya (Philem 19) is the epistolary aorist and marks the point at which Paul takes the pen from the amanuensis; and that only this concluding paragraph was written with his own hand. So the American Committee also in the Rev. Ver.-G. A,]
152 ["The word used, phli/koij, denotes size not irregularity. Nor is it probable that Paul who was educated at Jerusalem and Tarsus, the great centre of Jewish and Greek learning, was ignorant and unskillful in writing Greek. The boldness of the handwriting answers to the force of the Apostle's convictions."-Lightfoot.-G. A.]
153 ["Certain men have an `object0' in displaying their zeal for carnal ordinances. They hope thereby to save themselves from persecution for professing the cross of Christ."-Lightfoot.-G. A.]
154 ["They advocate circumcision and yet they themselves neglect the ordinances of the Law. They could not face the obloquy to which their abandonment of the Mosaic Law would expose them. So they tried to keep on good terms with their unconverted fellow-Jews by imposing circumcision on the Gentile converts also thus getting the credit of zeal for the law."-Lightfoot.-G. A.]
155 ["For myself, on the other hand, far be it from me, etc.: By way of contrast to the boasting of the pseudo-apostles, Paul now presents his own ground of boasting, namely, the crucifixion of Christ, by whose crucifixion is produced the result that no fellowship of life longer exists between him and the world: it is dead for him and he is dead for it."-Meyer.-Alter pro mortuo habet alterum. (Schott.)-G. A.]
156 ["It is a matter of indifference whether one is circumcised or uncircumcised; and the only matter of importance is that one should be created anew, transferred into a new spiritual condition of life."-Mayer.-G. A.]
157 ["Lightfoot similarly, but more clearly; "Paul closes the epistle as he began it, with an uncompromising assertion of his authority: Henceforth let no man question my authority; let no man thwart or annoy me. Jesus is my Master and his brand is stamped on my body. I bear this badge of an honorable servitude."-G. A.]
158 [So also Lightfoot, who says, "with your spirit" is probably in reference to the carnal religion of the Galatians, but this cannot be pressed because the same form of benediction occurs in Philem. 25; 2 Tim. iv:22. Meyer denies there is any such allusion at all. G. A.]
159 [ Dr. Schaff strikingly says: "The last sentence of this polemic Epistle is a benediction and the last word is a word of affection, `brethren.0' (The word a0delfoi/ stands last in the true text, as the Rev. Version has it.) It takes the sting out of the severity. Thus concludes this Epistle so full of polemic fire and zeal, yet more full of grace-free sovereign grace, justifying sanctifying grace, and full of forgiving love even to ungrateful pupils; an Epistle for the time and an Epistle for all times."-Popular Commentary, in loco.-G. A.]
1 [The Apocalypse already implies that he stood at the head of the churches of Asia Minor. Rev. 1: 4, 9, 11, 20. Chs. 2 and 3. This is confirmed by the unanimous testimony of antiquity. The most probable view is that he was exiled to Patmos under Nero, wrote the Apocalypse soon after Nero's death, 68 or 69 a.d., returned to Ephesus and died there after 98 a.d.-Schaff, Ch. Hist. I. p. 424, 429.-G. A.]
2 [Of which Ephesus was one of the cities. G.A.]
3 [Coleridge calls it the "divinest composition of man." Alford: "The greatest and most heavenly work of one whose very imagination is peopled with things in the heavens." Grotius: "Equaling the sublimity of its thoughts with words more sublime than any human language ever possessed."-Quoted in Schaff, Ch. Hist. I. p. 781.-G. A.]