Vers. 8, 9. _Ignorance of God a Spiritual Bondage._--1. However nature's light may serve to make known there is a God and that He ought to be served, it is nothing else but ignorance, as it leaves us destitute of the knowledge of God in Christ, without which there is no salvation. 2. Men are naturally inclined to feign some representation of the Godhead by things which incur in the outward senses, from which they easily advance to give Divine worship unto those images and representations. 3. Though the Levitical ceremonies were once to be religiously observed as a part of Divine worship leading to Christ, yet when the false teachers did urge them as a part of necessary commanded worship, or as a part of their righteousness before God, the apostle is bold to give them the name of "weak and beggarly elements." 4. People may advance very far in the way of Christianity, and yet make a foul retreat afterwards in the course of defection and apostasy.--_Fergusson._ Vers. 9, 10. _God's Sabbatic Law antedated the Mosaic Law._--And whatever of legal bondage has been linked with the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was eliminated together with the change to the first day of the week. This at once removes the Lord's Day from the category of days, and also of weak and beggarly elements. The mode of observance is learned from the Lord's words, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," which at the same time imply, when rightly understood, the perpetual necessity for a Sabbath.--_Lange._ Ver. 11. _Ministerial Anxiety_--1. Prompts to earnest efforts in imparting the highest spiritual truths. 2. Looks for corresponding results in consistency of character and conduct. 3. Is grieved with the least indications of religious failure. _MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 12-20. _The Pleadings of an Anxious Teacher with his Pupils in Peril._ +I. He reminds them of the enthusiastic attachment of former days.+--1. _Urges them to exercise the same freedom as he himself claimed._ "Be as I am; for I am as ye are" (ver. 12). Though himself a Jew, Paul had assumed no airs of superiority, and did not separate himself from his Gentile brethren; he became as one of them. He asks them to exercise a similar liberty; and lest they should fear he would have a grudge against them because of their relapse, he hastens to assure them, "Ye have not injured [wronged] me at all" (ver. 12).