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Eph_5:11. Συγκοινωνεῖτε ] have not fellowship with (the disobedient) in the works of darkness (comp. Eph_5:7; and as regards the dative, see on Php_4:14), i.e. in those works, which are wrought in consequence of spiritual darkness—of the ethical frame of mind opposed to divine truth. Comp. Rom_13:12. They are the ἔργα πονηρά (Col_1:21), the ἔργα τῆς σαρκός (Gal_5:21), the νεκρὰ ἔργα (Heb_6:1), the ἔργα ἀσεβείας (Jud_1:15).
τοῖς ἀκάρποις ] the non-fruitful ones, inasmuch, namely, as they draw no blessing after them. The perdition which they have as result (Rom_6:21; Rom_8:13; Gal_6:8; Eph_4:22, al.) is conceived as negation of blessedness (comp. Eph_5:5). Comp. ἔργα νεκρά , Heb_6:1; Heb_9:14.
μᾶλλον δὲ καί ] but rather even, imo adeo. See on Gal_4:9; Rom_8:34. Bengel well remarks: “non satis abstinere est.”
ἐλέγχετε ] reprove them (these works), which is done when they are not passed over in silence and indulgently excused, but are held up with censure to the doer, and have their immorality discovered and brought home, in order to produce amendment. This chastening reproof is an oral one, since the context does not intimate anything else; not one de facto (“sancta nimirum et honesta vita,” Beza; comp. Erasmus, Cameron, Zanchius), not “dictis et factis” (Bengel; comp. Theophylact, Photius, Calovius, Holzhausen, Olshausen, and others). Comp. on Joh_3:20; Joh_16:8; 1Co_14:24.