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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Ephesians 5:18 - 5:18
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18. καὶ μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ. From LXX. of Pro 23:31. Drunkenness was one of the chief dangers threatening Christian life in heathen surroundings. Warnings against it are not prominent in the Gospels (Luk 21:34; of. Mat 24:49 only, not in Mar 7:21 f. nor in Rev 21:8). In St Paul references appear in every group, 1Th 5:7; 1Co 6:10; Gal 5:21; Rom 13:13; cf. 1Pe 4:3. Even in Christian circles its presence was not unknown. Cf. 1Co 11:21; 1Ti 3:2; 1Ti 3:8; 1Ti 3:11; Tit 2:2 f.
ἐν ᾦ ἐστὶν ἀσωτία. Tit 1:6; 1Pe 4:4; of. Luk 15:13; 2Ma 6:4. A term clearly implying the gravest moral censure. Cf. Arist. Eth. Nic. IV. 1 τοὺς ἀκρατεῖς καὶ εἰς ἀκολασίαν δαπανηροὺς ἀσώτους καλοῦμεν.
ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι. Cf. Eph 3:19. See Additional Note on πλήρωμα. Here the antithesis to drunkenness is supplied not by sobriety, which in itself is by no means a merely negative conception (cf. 1Pe 1:13; 1Pe 4:7), but by a condition of spiritual, not necessarily emotional, exaltation, all the faculties of our nature being raised to their highest power by the power of the Spirit—as they are artificially and for a time by wine. ἐν πνεύματι. On the ‘dynamic’ force of this phrase, see on Eph 2:18.