Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse (or crooked') things. 'As a member of the body may be strained (says Lechler), and by violent bending put into a distorted position, so also truths may be perverted, placed in false relations to each other, distorted by exaggeration, changed into caricatures of that which they originally represented. And this is the nature of all false doctrine, Error is only a misrepresentation of truth; every false doctrine has some truth at bottom, which is misrepresented by the fault of men.'
To draw away disciples - rather, 'the disciples` х tous (G3588) matheetas (G3101)]
After them. Two classes of coming enemies are here announced: the one more external to themselves, the other bred in the bosom of their own community: both were to be teachers; but the one class are called "grievous wolves," not sparing, that is, making a prey of, the flock; the other, simply sectarian 'perverters' of the truth with the view of drawing a party after them. Perhaps the one pointed to that subtle poison of Oriental Gnosticism which we know to have very early infected the Asiatic churches; the other to such Judaizing tendencies as we know to have troubled nearly all the early churches. (See the Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Timothy; also those to the seven churches of Asia, Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22.) The remedy against this, and all that tends to injure and corrupt the Church, now follows.