Acts 20:29,30 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For I know this As if he had said, Wonder not that I give you this charge in so strict a manner; for, besides the weighty reasons for it which I have already intimated, I know, that after my departure From the churches in these parts, or my removal out of this life, notwithstanding all I have done to preserve discipline and truth among you; grievous wolves shall enter in From without, that is, seducing teachers, who shall endeavour to make a prey of you, and, by introducing false and heretical doctrines, shall divide and scatter you, as wolves make a prey of, divide, and scatter the sheep. He seems to mean those Judaizing and false teachers, who, though they had before this time done much mischief at Corinth and elsewhere, had not yet got any footing at Ephesus; not sparing the flock Having no mercy on them, but, with voracious eagerness, and overbearing violence, making terrible havoc of God's church, out of a mean and wicked regard to their own private and secular interests. Also of your own selves From within; shall men arise Proud and factious men; speaking perverse things Broaching false and pernicious tenets, which they will endeavour to establish by perverting the Scriptures; to draw away disciples after them From the purity of the gospel, and the unity of the body; or to make a party for themselves, that shall admire, be led by them, and contribute to their support and exaltation. By these, distinguished from those termed grievous wolves, in the foregoing verse, the apostle may mean such as Phygellus, Hermogenes, Hymeneus, and Philetus: as also those that afterward introduced the Nicolaitan principles and practices, of which Christ complains as prevailing here, (Revelation 2:6,) as well as in the neighbouring city Pergamus, Revelation 2:14-15.