[For] *I* know [this,] that there will come in amongst you after my departure grievous wolves, not sparing the flock;
Paul says goodbye to the Ephesian elders, and warns them in the same breath. Two questions follow. Who are these wolves? And what protects God's people once the apostle is gone?
Paul does not guess. He speaks as a man shown what is coming, and what he sees is damage, not growth.
Then he speaks as a prophet. He knows for certain that after he leaves this life, fierce wolves — heartless unbelievers — will get in among the flock and do great damage.
He promised no coming success:
He did not say, "You are going to have a big revival, everybody is going to be converted, and everybody is going to join the church." He said, "after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock."
Paul gives the elders a reason to feed the church: a wolf wants nothing good for the sheep.
Feed the church of God! ... Why do wolves come among the flock? They come to kill, to scatter, and to destroy — to damage the flock as much as possible.
The animal itself shows what "not sparing" means:
They are very destructive among the sheep, worrying and destroying more than they can eat. This makes the wolf a fit emblem of the wicked, who molest the sheep and lambs of God's flock, and even creep in among them.
These wolves "come in among you." They are not an army at the gate. They get inside, and they get inside by looking like they belong.
The wolf comes to the flock in sheep's clothing. He makes a fair profession, and it deceives the saints. So the Apostle Paul can warn us that after his departure wolves would come in among the saints, "not sparing the flock" (Matt. 7:15; Acts 20:29). The wolf cannot snatch the sheep out of the hand of the Shepherd, but he can seize and scatter the sheep.
Verse 29 and the verse after it are often read as one warning. Commentators differ: William Kelly holds that they describe two separate kinds of men.
Other commentators tell us that fierce wolves are not persecutors, but false friends — real enemies who come in among those who bear the name of the Lord and do not spare the flock. But those commentators are wrong to identify the fierce wolves with the men described in verse 30: "from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things." These are clearly two different classes of evil men. The first are more violent, the second more subtle. The first seek their own pleasure and gain. The second do the deadlier work of speaking twisted things to draw the disciples away after them. To use the flock for selfish ends is wicked; to put self and error in the place of Christ is worse still, though it looks more respectable.
Paul lived long enough to see the beginning of it. His own later letter records the collapse he had predicted.
In Paul's address to the Ephesian elders, sorrow at his own departure was mixed with a sadder warning of evil that would soon come to the church of God... And it began so soon, and spread so fast, that in his second letter to Timothy he writes of it as a well-known fact: "You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me."
What guards the flock now is God Himself, and food from His word.
The fierce wolves and the selfish, erring leaders are still with us, and we need to be on our guard against them. Paul points to the great safeguard against these evils: "I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up." God is more than a match for anything the enemy may bring against us. Depending on Him with constant watchfulness will keep us safe. But we need to be strengthened and built up by the word of His grace. If we rely on the word of men, we will be led astray. If we feed on the Word of God's grace, we will be able to resist every attack of the enemy.
The wolves do real damage, but they do not get the last word over a single sheep.
However great our failure may have been, and though fierce wolves may have come in among the Lord's people, not sparing the flock (Acts 20:29), yet at last all His sheep will come home. Not one will be lost, and not one missing on that great day.
- Foreseen. Paul speaks as a prophet. He knows what follows his departure: not revival, but wolves.
- Ferocious. Wolves come to kill, scatter and destroy, destroying more than they can eat: that is "not sparing."
- Disguised. They come in among the flock in sheep's clothing, deceiving the saints by a fair profession.
- Twofold. Kelly divides the violent wolves of verse 29 from the subtler men of verse 30, who twist the truth to gain a following. Commentators differ on this.
- Guarded. Against both, Paul points to God and the word of His grace. It builds the flock up, and every sheep still reaches home.
and from among your own selves shall rise up men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them.
Paul is warning the elders of the church at Ephesus. The next danger, he says, will not come from strangers but from men inside their own circle, who want a following of their own.
Paul had just warned of wolves coming in from outside. This second danger was already inside, and it worked the other way.
These would not "enter in" like the grievous wolves; they were already within the church. The wolf scatters. These men would seek to gather, but not around Christ. They wanted to gather followers around themselves. In doing so they would draw them away from simple loyalty to Christ.
Paul's phrase, "twisted things," appears in other translations as "perverted things." Commentators show how a small twist works.
The Darby translation gives, "speaking perverted things." There is an element of truth in it, but a clever twist perverts it. That again and again has taken place in the history of the church. This has happened even with men who may be elders. If self comes in, along with a desire to be first, there is a tendency to teach something very new with a little twist. Soon he becomes the leader of a kind of party in the church of God.
The effect of that twist is to move a believer's confidence from Scripture onto a man.
They would not directly deny the truths of Scripture. They would pervert them by giving them their own meaning. It was a different meaning from the one the apostles had taught the saints. This would throw their followers back on them, so that they would look to their leaders for teaching instead of to the word of God.
Paul was speaking to overseers. The danger would come out of that very group.
The very elders were to become a danger and an evil to themselves and to the disciples. Not they only, but they above all. Out of them the clergy (not gifted men) soon emerged, unknown while the apostles lived. Had the word of Christ dwelt in the saints richly, such a change could not have happened. People looked to man, and the word of God's grace became more slighted, forgotten, and powerless.
Commentators see two halves of one process.
The evil here is the reverse of what the Apostle speaks of in Acts 20:30. There he warned the Ephesian elders that trouble would come from leaders. Here he says it comes from disciples… One evil leads to the other. It begins with Christians forming parties around leaders. It ends with those leaders teaching perverse things. This principle showed itself at Corinth, and it has been at work through the whole history of the church with the same sad results.
The men Paul describes may not be frauds at all. That is what makes the warning so serious.
These men may well be true believers, but they give a twist to their teaching, and that twist perverts the truth… They attract people to themselves instead of leading them to Christ. In these words Paul sketched the future of what we know as Christendom.
Commentators draw a practical conclusion from this.
Perhaps this is why Scripture gives no instruction about continuing the office of elder in an official way beyond the apostle's lifetime… In the case of men speaking perverted things, an official appointment would only give approval to what is wrong.
Paul did not point the elders to the church's judgment. He did not tell them to stay neutral about false teaching. He gave them something outside any man.
He does not speak of the teaching of the church as a reliable guide. He does not hint at "neutrality" about the perverse things spoken. The word is to test everything. It is to be the unfailing guide of the sheep when those who ought to lead the flock go astray themselves.
This gives a plain test for any teacher. It mentions the Bereans — hearers who checked what they were told against Scripture.
A teacher who comes from God will always point his hearers to Christ. He will rest them on God's unerring word as the sure resting place for the soul. When someone speaks the truth, true believers will receive it "with all eagerness," like the Bereans. But they will also search the Scriptures to confirm what they have heard (Acts 17:11). The faithful teacher will always want his hearers to test what he has said by the authoritative words of Holy Scripture.
- Inside, not outside. The wolves break in; these men were already there. One danger scatters the flock, the other collects it — around the wrong centre.
- A twist, not a denial. "Twisted things" are truths given a man's own meaning. The error keeps enough truth in it to convince.
- The pull is toward self. The aim is a following. A teacher sent by God points people to Christ and to Scripture. These men point people to themselves.
- It starts both ways. Leaders twist the truth; followers crowd around favourites. Each feeds the other, as Corinth showed.
- The word is the test. Paul's resource was not the church's verdict or its silence. It was God and the word of His grace — the guide that holds when leaders fail.