(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
The apostle Paul wrote this letter from prison to a community of Christians in the Greek city of Philippi — people he loved deeply and considered his closest partners in ministry. He has just described his own wholehearted pursuit of Christ and urged his readers to follow that same example. Now, with a notable shift, he warns them about people within the Christian community whose lives told a different story from what they claimed to believe. The "cross of Christ" represents the self-giving, sacrifice-oriented, death-to-self nature of the gospel. To live as an "enemy of the cross" means claiming connection to Jesus while living entirely for yourself. And Paul says this not with cold theological distance, but with tears — he has warned about this before, and watching it happen has not made the grief any smaller.
Lord, I don't want to be someone who carries your name but quietly lives for everything else. Search me honestly — find where I've drifted, where comfort has slowly replaced the cross. Let your love, and Paul's tears, break through whatever has grown numb in me. Amen.
Paul is crying. That's the detail that stops me. He's not issuing corrections from a position of calm authority or firing off accusations. He's weeping — over people he knows, people inside the community, people whose slow drift from the cross he has watched happen up close over time. That kind of grief isn't for strangers. It's for people you love and for losses you've had to witness firsthand. There's a version of Christian life that can look entirely respectable on the outside while being quietly organized around the same things as everyone else's life: comfort, status, approval, accumulation — with a thin layer of religious language coating the surface. Paul isn't describing outsiders here. He's describing people at the table. The hardest question this verse asks isn't about someone else. It's: where, right now, am I actually living as an enemy of what the cross costs — choosing self-protection over sacrifice, managing my reputation over telling the truth, holding tightly to what I know I should release? Paul's tears say he thinks the honest answer to that question matters far more than we usually let ourselves believe.
What does it mean, in practical and daily terms, to "live as an enemy of the cross" — and why do you think Paul frames this as a pattern of life rather than a matter of stated belief?
Paul mentions that he is in tears as he writes this. What does his emotional response tell you about how he viewed these people, and what does it challenge about how you respond to people who disappoint or frustrate you?
Is it possible to sincerely believe in Jesus and still, in how you actually live day to day, be functioning as an enemy of the cross? How would you honestly know if that were true of yourself?
When you look at how you actually spend your time, money, and energy this week — not what you say you value, but what your life concretely shows — what picture emerges?
What is one specific area where you know you've been choosing comfort or self-interest over what following the cross genuinely asks of you? What would a real, concrete change look like starting this week?
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
Ephesians 4:1
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:4
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
1 Corinthians 13:6
Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
Philippians 1:27
That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
Romans 9:2
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
Romans 8:5
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
Hebrews 13:17
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Ephesians 4:17
For there are many, of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears, who live as enemies of the cross of Christ [rejecting and opposing His way of salvation],
AMP
For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
ESV
For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, [that they are] enemies of the cross of Christ,
NASB
For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
NIV
For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
NKJV
For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ.
NLT
There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I've warned you of them many times; sadly, I'm having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ's Cross.
MSG