Romans 16:18

οἱ γὰρ τοιοῦτοι κ. τ. λ. Christians must not associate with those who do not serve the one Lord. τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν Χριστῷ : this combination occurs here only in N.T. τῇ ἑαυτῶν κοιλίᾳ : cf. Philippians 3:19, ὧν ὁ θεὸς ἡ κοιλίᾳ. The words need not mean that the teachers in question were mere sensualists, or that they taught Epicurean or antinomian doctrines: the sense must partly be defined by the contrast it is not our Lord Christ whom they serve; on the contrary, it is base interests of their own. It is a bitter contemptuous way of describing a self-seeking spirit, rather than an allusion to any particular cast of doctrine. διὰ τῆς χρηστολογίας καὶ εὐλογίας : according to Grimm, χρηστολογία refers to the insinuating tone, εὐλογία to the fine style, of the false teachers. Examples from profane Greek bear out this distinction (εὔαρχός ἐστιν ὁ λόγος καὶ πολλὴν τὴν εὐλογίαν ἐπιδεικνύμενος καὶ εὔλεξις), but as εὐλογία in Biblical Greek, and in Philo and Josephus invariably has a religious sense, Cremer prefers to take it so here also: “pious talk”. ἐξαπατῶσι : Romans 7:11 1 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Thessalonians 2:2. ἀκάκων : all the English versions, except Gen [40] and A.V., render “of the innocent” (Gifford). See Hebrews 7:26. In this place “guileless” is rather the idea: suspecting no evil, and therefore liable to be deceived.

[40] genitive case.