Ephesians 5:15

Eph_5:15

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.

Circumspect behaviour

I. The duty--Walk circumspectly, i.e., diligently, carefully. The phrase imports such a caution and exactness in our Christian conversation, as resembles that which men use when walking on the top of a precipice or the summit of a building, where a small misstep would endanger a fall, and a fall would be fatal.

1. Walk circumspectly, that you may keep within the line of your duty. Religion is not an extended plain, in which you may walk at large, and turn to any point without passing its limits; but a strait and narrow path, in which you must pursue one steady course without diverting to either side.

(1) Be watchful to retain a sense of virtue and rectitude.

(2) Be attentive, that you may conform to the spirit of Gods commands.

2. Walk circumspectly, that you may escape the snares in your way. Your greatest security lies in watchfulness and prayer, lest you enter into temptations. If they meet you, resist them; but your first care must be to avoid them.

3. Walk circumspectly, that you may wisely comport with the aspects of Providence. The beauty of religion, yea, religion itself, greatly consists in the correspondence of your temper and behaviour with your existing circumstances. In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider.

4. Be circumspect, that you may do every duty in its time and place.

5. Walk circumspectly, that your good may not be evil spoken of.

II. The reason--The days are evil. The Christian, while he dwells on earth, may say, The days are evil--

1. Because he finds in himself much disorder and corruption.

2. Because he is exposed to various afflictions.

3. Because there are many adversaries.

4. Because iniquity abounds. Much need there is that he should walk circumspectly. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)

Admonitory counsels

I. The course against which we are counselled. Not to walk as fools. The ungodly walk as fools--

1. As they have no rule of conduct.

2. As they have no direct or distinct object in view.

3. As they walk often presumptuously and without fear of danger.

4. As they act without regard to their real welfare.

II. The course which is recommended for our adoption.

To walk circumspectly, as wise. Now this is just the opposite of the walk of fools. In doing this--

1. We must walk by a wise rule.

2. We must possess the spirit of wisdom. Now this must come from above (see Jam_3:17).

3. We must imitate the divinely recorded examples of wisdom.

4. We must walk and keep company with the wise. (J. Burns, D. D.)

Wise walking

I. In the first place, here we see the true character of the family of God. They are called wisdoms children: Wisdom is justified of her children. We do not deny that in the family of God there is oftentimes great weakness of character; that they make oft mistakes as to doctrine; and yet, compared with their wisdom, there is no wisdom upon earth. They are wise in the things of God; they are wise in the concerns of eternity; and compared with that wisdom, all the wisdom in this world is folly. These are they that know Christ; and to know Him is life eternal. These are they that know what sin is. These are they that know the great secret of holiness. These are they that know the way to a throne of grace. These are they that know where the treasury is, and the door to it; that Jesus is the treasury, and that He has opened the door by His own precious blood. These are the men who know how to meet trouble: that trouble that scares a worldly man.

II. But now observe, these are exhorted to walk wisely. As I said before, the wise man may oftentimes walk unwisely. We see it in the histories in the Bible; we see it in the biography of Gods saints. See that ye walk circumspectly: accurately. The worldly man lives at random. Sometimes his will leads him, his caprice, his fancy, his passion; sometimes he guides himself, sometimes others guide him. The apostle exhorts the wise to walk accurately; according to the rule of Gods Word, according to the rule of an enlightened conscience, and according to the rule of a filial, Joying heart. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)

The Christian urged to greater circumspection

I. The Christians duty. Every person familiar with the Bible knows that the term walking, applied to the Christian, signifies his habitual temper and deportment. The word here rendered circumspectly, in the original Scriptures suggests rather the term accurately, agreeable to a prescribed rule; and the translators of the Bible have adopted the word circumspectly, inasmuch as no one can walk accurately, or correctly, without looking about him, and carefully too. It is the part of fools to be heedless, taking their steps without care, insensible of their danger.

1. Christians should walk judiciously; impelled by principle rather than by feeling.

2. Christians should walk correctly or accurately according to the prescribed rule.

3. Christians should walk prudently, mindful of consequences.

4. Christians should advance cautiously, apprehensive of danger, and guarding against it.

5. Christians should walk diligently, improving every favourable opportunity.

II. The arguments which enforce it.

1. We plead the obligations of a religious profession. Many, indeed, are called Christians, but we refer to those who profess themselves not merely nominal but real Christians.

2. The solemn and express engagements into which many have voluntarily entered, present a second argument. Surely, Christians, your own acts must be binding.

3. The anxiety Christians must feel for the credit of religion, and for the honour of the Saviour, is a most powerful motive urging them to greater circumspection.

4. A regard to his relative usefulness is another consideration urging the Christian to greater watchfulness.

5. The positive injury to others, which invariably results from a flagrantly inconsistent profession of religion.

6. We urge upon the Christian, as a final motive to greater circumspection, a due regard to his own personal interests. His peace, his comfort, and even his safety are alike involved in it. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)

The Christians walk

Reasons to evince the necessity of this circumspect walking. First: We have a strict rule, that doth not yield the least allowance and indulgence to sin. Secondly: What a holy God we have for our witness, approver, and judge, who will one day call us to an account! Thirdly: A great obligation to our strict obedience, as we are children of the light.

1. Surely there should be a great and broad difference between them and the children of darkness.

2. Because the more light and knowledge a man hath, the more he is bound to take heed to his ways, that his practice may be according to his light.

3. They are the light of the world (Mat_5:14; Php_3:15). They should be a copy and pattern to others to invite them to the heavenly life by the strictness and seriousness of their conversations. The same honour is put upon you that was put upon the star at Bethlehem, to be guides to Christ. Therefore you are to be more exemplary, which cannot be without circumspection.

4. Because there are many snares and dangers; as in a chessboard, we can hardly move back or forth but we are ready to be attacked. In all the businesses, affairs, and comforts of this life, we are apt to miscarry. Yea, sometimes there may be a snare in our duties (1Ti_3:6). Now they that are not circumspect are sure to miscarry. He that hath his eyes in his head, and looketh about him, may escape (Pro_1:17).

5. blest Christians have but a weak heart, that is apt to lead them aside into some unbecoming practice. Our heart is most in danger, and therefore we have need to look to ourselves (1Co_10:12).

6. Consider how many guards God hath set upon man, who is apt to fly out upon all occasions. There is an external guard, the magistrate, who is to watch for thy good (Rom_13:4).

7. Because there are so many spies upon us, who may make an ill use of our failings. I shall instance in three--Satan, wicked men, and weak brethren.

Of reproof.

1. Of those that scoff at strictness and accurate walking. These scoff at that which is the glory of that religion which they do profess, that which God aimed at, that which Christ purchased, that which the Spirit worketh. Can a man keep at too great a distance from sin? But it is preciseness and fond scrupulosity. So did the conversations of Christians seem to the old pagans (1Pe_4:3-4).

2. It reproveth them that think men are more nice than wise, that we make more ado than needeth when we press men to a constant watchfulness and serious diligence in the heavenly life. Oh, consider, we have slippery hearts, and live in the midst of temptations, and are to approve ourselves in the sight of a holy God, who expecteth to be glorified by us.

3. Some slight strictness as a thing out of date, since they know their liberty by Christ. Alas! all the doctrines of grace do enforce it, not lessen it (Tit_2:11-12). There are some grazes necessary, and some practices.

First: For graces which are necessary, such as these--

1. Watchfulness, and heed that nothing unseemly pass from us. Those that are rash and indeliberate, and live at haphazard, can never walk accurately: He that hasteth with his feet, sinneth (Pro_19:2).

2. The fear of God: They walked in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost (Act_9:31). This is a grace never out of season (Pro_23:17).

3. Diligence, that we may both remove impediments of good and avoid occasions of evil, that you may take an accurate inspection of your whole life and conversation. Frequently examine your ways, whither they tend (Pro_4:26-27).

4. A tender conscience. Make conscience not only of gross sins, but lesser escapes. Do not wittingly tread one hairs breadth out of the way, nor run into any sin, much less live in it, be it never so small and profitable in the esteem of the world (Pro_7:2). The eye is offended with the least dust.

Secondly: Helps by way of practice.

1. Fix your end; for when the end is fixed, the means may be the better suited; it shineth to us all the way along: If thine eye be single, thy whole body is full of light (Mat_6:22); Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee (Pro_4:25). We should mind all things with respect to our end.

2. Take an account of the way you walk in: I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies (Psa_119:59; Lam_3:40).

3. Seek a good guide. Use much prayer to God, that He may direct you (Pro_3:5-6).

4. Renew your covenant, and often engage yourselves afresh to this strict and holy walking, because the strength of former resolutions is soon spent: I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep Thy righteous judgments (Psa_119:106).

5. Season the heart with strict principles. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Wise walking

There are many points of folly to be avoided.

1. Be not in a hurry to judge Gods providences.

2. Do not mock at sin. Fools make a mock at sin; whereas sin is the only thing to be feared.

3. Set not your affections upon worldly things.

4. Be not slow to receive the verities of faith.

5. Be not foolish in regarding mysteries. (J. Stratten.)

Wary walking

It used to be said of old that all roads led to Rome, because she was the capital of the world. And nowadays, in the most remote country place in England, you will find a road which leads to London. But all roads do not lead to heaven. Some foolish people like to believe that they can travel anyway they please, and yet reach heaven at last. They love to imagine that they can hold to any doctrine, however false and extravagant, and set up a gospel of their own, and yet find the way to heaven. Let us think of some of the rules by which we must walk in the narrow way.

1. We must walk humbly. It is a narrow way, remember, and if we walk with our heads lifted up by pride, we shall miss our footing, and slip from the path. The gate, too, is strait, or narrow. It is like one of those low-pitched, narrow entrances which you may still see in old buildings, and which were common once in all our ancient towns. A traveller could not get through those gates unless he bent his head, and bowed his shoulders.

2. If we walk along the narrow way, we must not overload ourselves. There are some burdens which we must bear, but the dear Lord, who laid them upon us, will give us strength to carry them. It is the burden of the worlds making which will hinder us. We see a man who wants to walk in the right way, who hopes to pass through the narrow gate, who has so loaded himself with worldly things that he goes staggering along, till he is like one escaping from a shipwreck, who tries to swim ashore with all his money bags, and is sunk to the bottom by their weight. Sometimes people, coming home from abroad, bring with them a quantity of smuggled goods, and their clothes are all padded with laces, and other ill-gotten gear. What happens? They are stopped at a narrow gate, and stripped of all their load before they are permitted to return home. So, my brothers, if you would pass the gate which leads home, to the rest which remaineth for the people of God, you must not overload yourselves with this worlds gear. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)

Christian circumspection or exactness

It is no uncommon thing to hear persons commended for their regular and circumspect way of living, viz., with respect to their diet and exercise, and other things that belong to their bodily health; whilst few are taken notice of, esteemed and honoured for a higher sort of regularity and circumspection, such as relates to their immortal souls, and the concerns of a better life. Here many are content to be remiss and superficial, and make it the least of their study to be exact.

I. I begin with the first observable, the general important duty incumbent on us, See that ye walk circumspectly. The remark, then, upon this first clause of the text is this, that a Christians life is a life of the greatest accuracy and exactness. A Christian is one that is not like other men, he surpasses the common condition of mankind.

1. This exact and circumspect walking is not singularity and affectation. It is no fantastic opposition to the common usages and received customs of mankind, if they be in themselves lawful and innocent.

2. This exactness in my text favours nothing of over-nice fear and superstition, in which many place a great part of their religion. St. Paul tells us, he was of the strictest sect of religion, meaning that of the Pharisees. But that strictness and exactness were afterwards undervalued by him as trifling and childish.

3. Neither doth this duty imply any pharisaical boasting and ostentation of strictness. That proud and arrogant sect before mentioned used to glory in their great severity of life, or rather in the mere appearance of it.

4. This exact living doth not import any fond rigour and austerity over the body, as some have imagined.

5. This strictness or exactness of life doth not contain in it any notion of merit and supererogation.

6. This circumspect and exact walking doth not speak complete perfection and absolute freedom from all sin.

II. To further and advance you still in this great and weighty affair, I will proceed in the next place to tell you positively wherein this exactness or circumspection, which the apostle commends to you, doth consist.

1. It is opposed to idleness, neutrality, and indifferency, and consequently is an act of Christian zeal and vigour. He must shake off all coldness and indifferency, and prosecute religion with the warmest emotions of mind, with the most ardent zeal and liveliness.

2. This strict and accurate walking is opposed to partiality, and so doth denote universal obedience, and having respect unto all the Divine law. There is no exactness without a rule or square, and that is the Word of God. Now this universal respect unto Gods laws (wherein the Christian circumspection is so much seen) requires of us and strictly obliges us to these three things:

(1) That we refrain not only from outward and visible acts of sin, but that the inward lusts and hidden desires of vice be carefully supprest in our minds.

(2) We are obliged, as we would be impartial observers of Gods laws, not only to perform the visible and public offices of religion, and such as are more easy in themselves and more creditable and fashionable in the account of the world, but likewise to be mindful of the private exercises of devotion, such as praying to God in our retirements.

(3) Our universal respect to Gods laws obliges us not only to abstain from gross and notorious crimes, and such offences as are very heinous and enormous, but also to make conscience of lesser and smaller sins.

3. This Christian duty of exact walking is opposed to our giving of scandal and offence to our brethren, and consequently commends to us a wary and cautious deporting of ourselves before those we converse with. This is circumspection in the true and precise notion of the word. It supposes persons to look about them, and to take good notice of things, and weigh well what they do, and before whom they act.

4. This duty in my text is opposed to hypocrisy and formality, and so it engages us to be sincere and cordial in whatever we do.

5. He that would acquit himself to be an exact walker, must more mind the things that are substantial and essential in religion, than those that are merely circumstantial and accidental. Religion doth not consist in puncto, its exactness is not placed in petty and mean things.

6. This Christian exactness is opposed to apostasy and backsliding, and so it obliges us to increase every day more and more in holiness, to abound in grace, and to persevere in the ways of goodness.

7. This most accurate and strict life of a Christian, is no less than an aiming and endeavouring after perfection.

III. To excite you to this Christian exactness and circumspection which I have been insisting upon, I pray let these following considerations be entertained by you:

1. Think how strict the principles and rules of Christianity are, and accordingly what great improvements were intended by them. The institution of the gospel designed as for greater perfection than ever was attained by the ceremonious Jew, or the most accomplished Gentile.

2. Besides the doctrine of Christianity and the design and purpose of Christ in it, I may adjoin the most holy, exact, and exemplary life of our blessed Master, and on this consideration I may urge you to a wary and circumspect walking; for the life of a Christian should be no other than a conformity to the life of Christ. We are to follow His steps, and to reckon His actions to be our pattern.

3. Consider how great helps and assistances God is pleased to afford you, and you will conclude it reasonable to walk with great exactness and strictness. The cruel and unmerciful taskmasters in Egypt pressed the Israelites to make brick, but would not give them their allowance of strait. We deal with no such hard master.

4. Think with how many dangers you are every moment environed, and you will be concerned to walk circumspectly, to tread cautiously, to live orderly and regularly. This world is hung about with snares, beset with various temptations, and the spirit of darkness, that great enemy of God and our souls, is ever plotting and contriving our ruin.

5. Set before you, and often seriously represent to your thoughts, the everlasting rewards of heaven. I cannot apply the common story of the Limner better than here. That famous artist was wont to take up a great deal of time in finishing his pictures and portrays, whereas others of that profession made quick dispatch, and had soon done their work. He, being asked why he was so long at his, and why so curious and exact? gave this short answer, I paint for eternity, i.e., I do my work so that all future ages shall applaud me, I design myself a perpetual reward of fame. Did we but consider that every line we draw in our lives, every stroke we make, every enterprize we undertake, is for eternity; if we seriously thought of this, we should be more accurate and exact, more laborious and industrious, in all that we do. We are those that draw and limn for eternity, we labour for that which endureth to everlasting life; therefore we cannot be too long and tedious about our work, we cannot be too diligent and exact about it.

6. Let me add this one consideration more, that an exact and exemplary life is the best (if not the only) way you can take to work upon others, to amend the sinful world, to reclaim men from their follies, to win them to the embracing of religion and holiness, which I doubt not you think is a design well worth your prosecuting. (John Edwards, D. D.)

Christian wisdom or prudence

Having dispatched the first observable in the text, which was the grand duty incumbent on us, viz., that we walk circumspectly, I proceed now to the particular instances of this duty, and they are Christian wisdom and redeeming the time.

1. I say, we may more eminently convince the world that we have obtained to Christian wisdom and prudence by our being of a humble and meek spirit. There is nothing looks so unbecoming in a person that professes godliness as pride.

2. Make a visible proof of your walking wisely by being of a peaceable and quiet, a loving and charitable temper, and that, first, among yourselves, secondly, towards all men. Let your first care be that you disgrace not religion by falling out among yourselves.

3. Though you ought to maintain a loving and sociable converse with the world, yet Christian wisdom directs you to abhor and avoid all intimate commerce and friendship with such as you know to be professed enemies to virtue and godliness, and are openly profane, and refuse to be reclaimed from their abominable practices.

4. Show your godly wisdom in your strict observing of the second table as well as the first. Your duty to God must never exclude that which you owe to your neighbours, for in discharging both you serve God.

5. Let your prudence be seen in your perfect vanquishing of earthly-mindedness and covetousness.

6. Walk not as fools, but as wise, by living contentedly and cheerfully in whatever state of life it pleaseth the Divine Providence to place you. Serve God and be joyful, is a Christians motto. He hath learnt to live by faith, which is ever accompanied with rejoicing.

7. Discover your Christian prudence and wisdom by being always more strict and severe to yourselves than you are to your neighbours.

8. Show your Christian prudence (and in that your circumspection) in being cautious in the use of lawful and innocent things.

9. Let our spiritual care and wisdom be seen in our not making ourselves guilty of other mens sins.

The application of all shall be in these two particulars:

1. Be deterred from all appearance of wickedness and vice.

2. Be encouraged to a holy and godly life.

Think you have reason to be deterred from all manner of vicious practices on this double consideration:

1. Lest the ways of God be evil spoken of, and consequently that God himself be dishonoured thereby.

2. Lest others be drawn to imitate your ill example. (John Edwards, D. D.)

Cautious exactness

There is a grace too little thought of, which, nevertheless, belongs eminently to a Christian man. Let not any man think lightly of it, as though it were a mere heathen virtue. I mean, a cautious exactness. It is this of which the apostle is speaking in my text. For so it would be most literally translated, See that ye walk accurately, or exactly. Now, it is certain that he who would be accurate in action, must first be a man accurate in thought, and that especially in thoughts about God. If a man allow himself inaccurate views about religion, how can we wonder that the life, which is, after all, but the reflection of every mans mind, be inaccurate too? Now, in close connection with this accurate holding of truth, let me earnestly impress upon you the necessity of the accurate performance of the daily duties of your own closet. Four things you have always to do when you are in your own room alone with God: to read God; to read self; to bring self to God; and to bring God to self. Let each have its own little space; and let each be done with exactness of thought. Who can wonder if all irregularities grow up into that mind which is not disciplined in spiritual duties? Or, what profit can there be in a flung prayer; or in jumbled thoughts as you read the Bible? With this foundation, then, of the exactness of the knowledge of truth in your minds, and with very measured, punctual prayers, let a man go forth. But as he goes forth, let him still carry with him the thought, that the outer life always follows the inner life, and that, before there can be correctness of action in any matter, there must first be strictness of feeling; and that, after all, in everything the motive is the determining consideration. Therefore, in this, as in everything else, the Christian has to guard and study most what is secret and unseen by men. He must accustom himself, by daily efforts, to think accurately. He must be always a man keeping the tight rein of his affection. He must always be practising, and habituating his judgments. He must go up and down the chambers of his own heart, and be always setting his own heart in order. He must walk circumspectly with his inner man. He must make a covenant with his eyes. He must prevent a rising desire when it first springs up. He must chasten himself in his inner thoughts. He must be within what he wishes to appear to be without. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Christian prudence

The prudent man, in the worlds estimation, is one who walks circumspectly; who goes through life, as the saying is, with his wits about him; with his eyes open to mark every opportunity; ready to spread his sail to every wind; one who does not rashly commit himself, but rather stands aloof and studies others, and uses the results for his own advantage. Prudence, or providence, for the words are the same, implies a power to overlook the pressing temptation of the present, for the weighty advantage of the future--that which glitters and deceives, for that which is solid but less attractive. Now, all this is our guide and pattern. What they do for corruptible advantages, we are to do for an incorruptible. What they do and submit to for a self whose interests terminate here, we are to act and to suffer for one whose welfare is not bounded by time. Yet how far are we from acting with the prudence that they do. Careless about the high interests before us, we let time flit by, and opportunities pass unheeded. We do not study the aspect of the days in which we live, nor ask ourselves what care they especially demand that we may be effective for good; and so the gospel is losing ground, and unbelief is coining in like a tide upon us, and mens lives are losing their Christian character, and evils of unmeasured magnitude must follow, if we do not awake in time to spiritual wisdom. I will first remind you that we Christians were certainly never meant to be thus remiss and insensible; that Christ came to redeem and renew us in every legitimate faculty and every salutary use of it. The redemption of Jesus Christ was wrought to comprehend mans whole nature, and mans whole history; there is no lawful advance of mankind, no wholesome invention, which it may not; include in its instruments for Gods glory, and by neglecting which it does not lose space and power for its work; no symptom of the state of mens minds and of society, which it ought not to turn to account for its high purposes. We need to walk circumspectly, brethren, both in belief, and in practice. Belief is a state of mind made up of the results of persuasion, and the influence of habit. And this latter is very much affected by the society among which we move in life. So that any prevailing character in the views and thoughts of an age is sure to be reproduced more or less in each individual mans belief. Let us pass on now to practice. Here, too, we most deeply need wary and circumspect walking, as to both the good and the bad habits and influences around us. There can be no doubt that we live in an age of much practical good. The infirmities, miseries, and ignorances of humanity are more noticed and more cared for than in any previous age. We have numerous institutions calculated to teach the ignorant, to reclaim the fallen, to help those who need help. Well, then, our question today is, are we Christians walking prudently, with regard to all this machinery for good? Are we making the most of it for God and for our own eternal happiness? And if not, how may we do so? Strive to do what thou canst do well, and to serve where thou canst serve with a pure conscience; but aim not at duties which thou canst; never thoroughly perform, and at offices which thou canst not satisfactorily fill. If we are walking circumspectly, can we avoid hearing such voices as these sounding about us? if we are not fools but wise, shall we not admit them to a place in our counsels, and in the formation of our plans in life? (Dean Alford.)

Wise Christian method

It was the safety of Methodism, and the secret of its success, that in its first rise among the knot of men in Oxford who banded themselves together for security in the midst of ungodliness and vice prevailing all around them, they soon learned the lesson of combining the two elements and conditions of a right Christian mode of life; walking circumspectly, strictly by rule, methodically arranging and rigidly observing a definite plan of spiritual life; and yet doing so, not foolishly, as if they were to be the slaves of their own arrangements; but; wisely, with a wise common sense, and intensely Christian regard to the evil days on which their lot had fallen, and the urgent need of their redeeming the time, grasping and improving the opportunity. It was this that made Methodism a power; not a new retreat and home for recluse spirits and souls sick of sin and of the world; but a new source of blessed influence in a dry, cold age; a mighty agent for the revival and regeneration of a Christianity that had fallen upon, and, alas! yielded itself up to what were, truly evil days. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

Wise conduct of life

Life is a voyage in a frail boat upon a dangerous sea, a sea washed by mighty currents, liable to awful storms, torn with sunken reefs, bound by iron shores. If the captain be wise and watchful, if his crew be under due control, if his anchors be strong, his chart correct, his compass true, his vessel taut, he may safely ride out the hurricane, and safely reach the haven where he would be. But, ah! if he leave her to drift with mutinous sailors, false chart, damaged compass, rent sails, untended helm, what shall be the end but a dismantled hulk upon the surging waters, or a desolate wreck upon the lonely shore? Is life, with all its tremendous realities, a thing less dangerous? If the fools ship will not be ruled by the rudder, must it not be ruled by the rock? (Archdeacon Farrar.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 5:15-17. See then — That you may be fit to reprove sin in others; that ye — Yourselves, upon whom the light of Christ already shines; walk circumspectly — Ακριβως, accurately, with the utmost exactness; making his will, as made known to you in his word, your rule, and his glory your end, in all your actions, cares, labours, and pursuits; taking the most attentive heed to every step, and conducting yourselves, not as fools, who have no understanding of their duty or interest, and who consider not what they are doing, in what way they are proceeding forward, or where it will terminate; but as wise men — Who know the worth of their immortal souls, the snares that are or will be laid to entangle them, by their subtle and powerful enemies, the many pressing dangers they have to avoid, and the important ends they have to secure. Redeeming the time — With all possible care, εξαγοραζομενοι, buying it up, as it were, as a most precious commodity, (though held cheap by many,) out of the hands of sin and Satan, of sloth, ease, pleasure, and worldly business, which may be done at the expense of a little self-denial, watchfulness, zeal, and diligence, which will be amply recompensed in time and in eternity; or endeavouring to recover and buy back, (as the word may signify,) as far as possible, what has been lost, by diligently making use of what remains, especially in embracing every opportunity of receiving and doing good, and studying to improve every one to the best purposes: and this the rather, because the days are evil — Days of the grossest ignorance, immorality, and profaneness; so that being surrounded on every side with bad examples, we are in danger of being corrupted, and are at the same time exposed to various persecutions and perils, and know not how soon we may be deprived of our liberty or lives. Wherefore — Since the times are so evil, and the danger so great; be ye not unwise — Ignorant of your duty and true interest, negligent of the concerns of your immortal souls, and inconsiderate as you formerly were; but understanding what the will of the Lord is — In every time, place, and circumstance.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Eph_5:15. See then that ye walk circumspectly.—R.V. “Look then carefully how ye walk.” The way of life must be one of exactitude; and that it may be so the steps must not be haphazard, but carefully taken.

Eph_5:16. Redeeming the time.—R.V. margin, “buying up the opportunity.” Seizing the crucial moment as eagerly as men bid for a desirable article at an auction sale. Because the days are evil.—A man in Paul’s circumstances and with his consuming earnestness of spirit may be forgiven if he does not see everything rose-coloured.

Eph_5:18. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.—The word for “excess” is found again in Tit_1:6 as “riot,” and in 1Pe_4:4. In all three texts the warning against intoxication is near the word. In Luk_15:13 we have the adverbial form—“riotously.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Eph_5:15-18

Christian Wisdom—

I. Cautiously regulates the outward life.—“See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (Eph_5:15). The Christian needs not only spiritual fervour and enthusiasm, but also prudence—sanctified common sense. It is possible to do a right thing in a wrong way, or in such a way as to cause more mischief than benefit. There is a severity of virtue that repels, and rouses resentment; and there is a parade of Christian liberty that shocks the sensitive. The truth lies between two extremes, and Christian wisdom is seen in maintaining the truth and avoiding extremes. “I wisdom dwell with prudence.” Mr. Edward Everett Hale is generally credited as the author of the following motto for Christian workers:

“Look up, and not down;

Look out, and not in;

Look forward, and not back;

Lend a hand.”

Success in soul-winning is only given to skill, earnestness, sympathy, perseverance, tact. Men are saved, not in masses, but by careful study and well-directed effort. It is said that such is the eccentric flight of the snipe when they rise from the earth that it completely puzzles the sportsman, and some who are capital shots at other birds are utterly baffled here. Eccentricity seems to be their special quality, and this can only be mastered by incessant practice with the gun. But the eccentricity of souls is beyond this, and he had need be a very spiritual Nimrod—a mighty hunter before the Lord—who would capture them for Christ. “He that winneth souls is wise.”

II. Teaches how to make the best use of present opportunity.—

1. Observing the value of time amid the prevalence of evil. “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph_5:16). Time is a section cut out of the great circle of eternity, and defines for us the limits in which the work of life must be done. It is a precious gift bestowed by the beneficent hand of God—a gift involving grave responsibility; and we must render a strict account of the use we make of every swing of the pendulum. It is doled out to us in minute fragments. One single year is made up of 31,536,000 seconds. Every tick of the clock records the ever-lessening opportunities of life. Time is in perpetual motion. Like a strong, ever-flowing river, it is bearing away everything into the boundless ocean of eternity. We never know the value of time till we know the value of the fragments into which it is broken up. To make the most of a single hour we must make the most of every minute of which it is composed. The most dangerous moments of a man’s life are those when time hangs heavily on his hands. He who has nothing to do but kill time is in danger of being killed himself. It is a miracle of divine goodness if he is preserved from serious folly, or something worse; and such miracles rarely occur. The man who has learnt the value of time can learn any lesson this world may have to teach him. Time is the opportunity for the exercise of Christian wisdom, and should be the more sedulously used “when the days are evil”—when evil is in power. Oh for wisdom to number our days, to grasp the meaning of present opportunity! Here come the moments that can never be had again; some few may yet be filled with imperishable good. Let us apply our hearts—all our powers—unto wisdom.

2. Having the good sense to recognise the divine will.—“Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph_5:17). We must read and interpret the signs of the times in the light of God’s purpose. A close and deep study of the divine mind will reveal to us the significance of the passing opportunity, and aid us in making the wisest use of it. Our biggest schemes are doomed to failure if they are not in accordance with the will of God. The noblest tasks are reserved for those who have the keenest spiritual insight and are most in harmony with the divine purpose.

III. Avoids the folly and waste of intemperance.—“Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess” (Eph_5:18). The Asian Christians were a social, lighthearted people, fond of convivial feasts. Wine was their danger; and even in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper they ran into excess, and degraded the holy ordinance. There were doubtless converted drunkards among them; and the warning of the text was specially needed. Intemperance is not only a folly and a waste; it is a degradation and a sin. It is the excessive indulgence of a craving that at bottom may be in itself good, if wisely regulated—a craving for an intenser life. “One finds traces,” says Monod, “of the primitive greatness of our nature even in its most deplorable errors. Just as impurity proceeds at the bottom from an abuse of the craving for love, so drunkenness betrays a certain demand for ardour and enthusiasm which in itself is natural and even noble. Man loves to feel himself alive; he would fain live twice his life at once; and he would rather draw excitement from horrible things than have no excitement at all.” When the physicians told Theotimus that except he abstained from drunkenness and licentiousness he would lose his eyes, his heart was so wedded to his sins that he answered, “Then farewell, sweet light.”

IV. Seeks to be under the complete control of the divine Spirit.—“But be filled with the Spirit” (Eph_5:18). The excitement of drunkenness must be supplanted by a holier and more elevating stimulus: the cup that intoxicates exchanged for the new wine of the Spirit. The general adoption of this principle will be the grandest triumph of temperance. The cure of drunkenness will not be accomplished simply by the removal of temptation, unless a relish for higher things is created and springs of holier pleasure are opened in the hearts of men. A lower impulse is conquered and expelled by the introduction of a higher. Anachonis, the philosopher, being asked by what means a man might best guard against the vice of drunkenness, answered, “By bearing constantly in his view the loathsome, indecent behaviour of such as are intoxicated.” Upon this principle was founded the custom of the Lacedæmonians of exposing their drunken slaves to their children, who by that means conceived an early aversion to a vice which makes men appear so monstrous and irrational. There is no excess in drinking copious draughts of the Spirit. Christian wisdom opens the soul to the ever-flowing tide of His influence, and strives to be animated and filled with His all-controlling power.

Lessons.—

1. Wisdom is the best use of knowledge.

2. Christianity opens the purest sources of knowledge.

3. “Get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.”

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Eph_5:15-17. Walking circumspectly.

I. The duty recommended.—

1. Walk circumspectly that you may keep within the line of your duty. Your course often lies in a medium between two extremes. If from this course you deviate, you step into the territory of vice. Be circumspect that you may not mistake your duty. Be watchful that you may retain a sense of virtue and rectitude. Be attentive that you may conform to the Spirit of God’s commands.

2. Walk circumspectly that you may escape the snares in your way.—Often look forward to descry your dangers. Attend to your particular situation and condition in life. Often review your past life, and reflect on former temptations. Be circumspect that you may detect your enemies when they approach you in disguise. Never neglect your duty under pretence of shunning a temptation.

3. Walk circumspectly that you may wisely comport with the aspects of Providence.

4. Be circumspect that you may do every duty in its time and place.—Attend on the daily worship of God in your families and closets. Be kind and beneficent to the poor. Neglect not the care of your body. Attend on the instituted ordinances of the gospel.

5. Walk circumspectly that your good may not be evil spoken of.

II. The argument by which the apostle urges the duty.—“The days are evil.” The argument was not peculiar to those early times, but is pertinent to all times.

1. The days are evil because the Christian finds in himself much disorder and corruption.

2. The days are evil as he is exposed to various afflictions.

3. There are many adversaries.

4. Iniquity abounds.—Lathrop.

Eph_5:15. The Wise Conduct of Life.—

1. The more light and knowledge a man receives from God he ought to take the more diligent heed that in all things he practises according to his light.

2. Those only are most fit to reprove sin in others who walk most circumspectly and live so as they cannot be justly blamed themselves. Even the righteous walking of such is a forcible reproof of sin in others, though they speak nothing.

3. As those are only truly wise in God’s account who labour to walk most exactly by the rule of God’s word, so where this sanctified wisdom is it will render itself evident by making the person endowed with it walk circumspectly.

4. The less circumspect and exact men be in walking by the rule of God’s word the greater fools they are in God’s esteem.—Fergusson.

Eph_5:16. Redeeming the Time.—To redeem time is to regain what is lost and to save what is left.

I. Enter on your work speedily.—Do you ask what is your work? It is time you knew. Consult God’s word; that will tell you.

II. Attend to your work with diligence.—A sense of past slothfulness must excite you to severer industry. Be not only fervent but steady in your work.

III. Guard against the things which rob you of your time.—An indolent habit is inconsistent with laudable actions. A versatile humour is active, but wants patience. An excessive fondness for company and amusement is the cause of much waste of time.

IV. Do every work in its season.—Youth is the most promising season. The time of health is more favourable than a time of sickness. There are seasons friendly to particular duties. In doing works of charity observe opportunities.

V. Wisely divide your time among your various duties.—Lathrop.

The Redemption of Time.

I. The subject of the exhortation.—

1. Time sometimes signifies the whole duration assigned to the present world.

2. The period of human life.—The time we occupy in the present state is that which God allots for our personal probation and trial. All God’s dispensations in respect to us refer to this period and have their limits fixed by it.

3. Time means season or opportunity.—In this sense the apostle uses it here. We are to redeem all the opportunity God bestows on us for getting and doing good, for acquainting ourselves with Him and being at peace.

II. The duty enjoined on us.—“Redeeming the time”—the opportunity.

1. We redeem time by consideration.

2. When we turn everything we have to do, in the common concerns of life, into a religious channel.

3. By living in a devotional spirit.—

(1) This will cast out everything trifling, much more everything sinful, from our leisure hours.

(2) Its preservation and exercise are perfectly compatible with the affairs of life.

4. The principal way by which time is to be redeemed is not merely by making efforts to promote our final blessedness, but by actually securing our present salvation.

III. The motives by which the exhortation is enforced.—“Because the days are evil.”

1. The days are evil in a general sense.—This age, as well as the age of the apostles, is a wicked one.

2. Because they are days of distress.

3. The days are evil individually.—In the sense of affliction to a number of individuals.

4. It is an evil day that we are ever exposed to enemies and temptations.

5. Every day opportunities of improvement are wasted is an evil day.

6. The time will come when, as to many unhappy spirits, the opportunity of salvation will be lost for ever.—R. Watson.

The Redemption of Time.—The more the days are beset by things that grievously invade them, disturb them, waste them, the more careful and zealous should we be to save and improve all that we can. To this end—

I. It is of the highest importance that time should be a reality in our perception and estimate; that we should verify it as an actual something, like a substance to which we can attach a positive value, and see it as wasting or as improved as palpably as the contents of a granary or as the precious metals. The unfortunate case with us is, that time is apprehended but like air, or rather like empty space, so that in wasting it we do not see that we are destroying or misusing a reality. Time is equivalent to what could be done or gained in it.

II. Keep established in the mind, and often present to view, certain important purposes or objects that absolutely must be attained.—For example: that there is some considerable discipline and improvement of the mind, some attainment of divine knowledge, some measure of the practice of religious exercises, and there is the one thing needful in its whole comprehensive magnitude.

III. That time be regarded in an inseparable connection with eternity is the grand principle for redeeming it; to feel solemnly that it is really for eternity, and has all the importance of this sublime and awful relation. It might be a striking and alarming reflection suggested to a man who has wasted his time—now the time has gone backward into the irrevocable past, but the effect of it, from the quality you have given it, is gone forward into eternity, and since you are going thither, how will you meet and feel the effect there?

IV. Nothing short of the redemption of the soul is the true and effectual redemption of time.—And this object gives the supreme rule for the redeeming of time. How melancholy to have made so admirable a use of time for all purposes but the supreme one!—John Foster.

Eph_5:17-18. Sensual and Spiritual Excitement.—There is the antithesis between drunkenness and spiritual fulness. The propriety of this opposition lies in the intensity of feeling produced in both cases. There is one intensity of feeling produced by stimulating the senses, another by vivifying the spiritual life within. The one commences with impulses from without, the other is guarded by forces from within. Here, then, is the similarity and here the dissimilarity which constitutes the propriety of the contrast. One is ruin, the other salvation. One degrades, the other exalts.

I. The effects are similar.—On the day of Pentecost, when he first influences of the Spirit descended on the early Church, the effects resembled intoxication. It is this very resemblance which deceives the drunkard; he is led on by his feelings as well as by his imagination. Another point of resemblance is the necessity of intense feeling. We have fulness—it may be produced by outward stimulus or by an inpouring of the Spirit. The proper and natural outlet for this feeling is the life of the Spirit. What is religion but fuller life?

II. The dissimilarity or contrast in St. Paul’s idea.—The one fulness begins from without, the other from within. The one proceeds from the flesh, and then influences the emotions; the other reverses this order. Stimulants like wine inflame the senses, and through them set the imaginations and feelings on fire; and the law of our spiritual being is, that that which begins with the flesh sensualises the spirit; whereas that which commences in the region of the spirit spiritualises the senses, in which it subsequently stirs emotion. That which begins in the heart ennobles the whole animal being; but that which begins in the inferior departments of our being is the most entire degradation and sensualising of the soul. The other point of difference is one of effect. Fulness of the Spirit calms; fulness produced by excitement satiates and exhausts. The crime of sense is avenged by sense which wears with time—the terrific punishment attached to the habitual indulgence of the senses is that the incitements to enjoyment increase in proportion as the power of enjoyment fades. We want the Spirit of the life of Christ, simple, natural, with power to calm and soothe the feelings which it rouses; the fulness of the Spirit which can never intoxicate!—F. W. Robertson.

Christian Mirth versus Drunken Mirth.—Carnal men seek the joys of life in revelry, but Christians must seek them in a higher inspiration—that of the Holy Ghost, whose fulness is the source of the blithest and most joyous life.

I. The mirth begotten of wine is the mother of all kinds of profligacy.

II. The mirth begotten of wine destroys men body and soul.

III. The fulness of the Holy Spirit produces a truly blithe and merry life.—In this life, with its many causes of depression, men need exhilaration, and the text points us to the only place where it is to be found without any alloy.—G. A. Bennetts, B.A.

What is your Heart filled with?

I. The heart of man must be full of something.

II. Those who are full of wine cannot be filled with the Spirit.

III. Those who are filled with the Spirit will not be full of wine.

IV. The joy that is kindled by fulness of wine is degrading while it lasts, and will soon expire.

V. The joy that is kindled by the fulness of the Spirit makes us like the angels, and it will never end.—Lay Preacher.

The Vice of Drunkenness.

I. The nature and extent of the sin.—The use of meat and drink is to support and comfort the body. Whatever is more than these is excess. The highest degree of intemperance is such an indulgence as suspends the exercise of the mental and bodily powers. If by the indulgence of your appetite you unfit your body for the service of your mind, or your mind for the service of God, so waste your substance as to defraud your family of a maintenance or your creditors of their dues, become enslaved to a sensual habit and fascinated to dissolute company, stupefy your conscience, extinguish the sentiments of honour and banish the thoughts of futurity, you are chargeable with criminal excess.

II. The guilt and danger which attend the vice.—

1. It is an ungrateful abuse of God’s bounty. 2 It divests the man of his native dignity and sinks him below the brutal herds.

3. Is injurious to the body as well as mind.

4. Consumes men’s substance.

5. Wastes a man’s conscience as well as his substance.

6. Intemperance generates other vices—impure lustings, angry passions, profane language, insolent manners, obstinacy of heart, and contempt of reproof.

7. Has most lamentable effects on families.

8. The Scripture abounds in solemn warnings against this sin.

9. This sin must be renounced, or the end of it will be death.—Lathrop.

Being filled with the Spirit.—

1. It supposes a sufficiency and fulness in the Spirit and His influences every way to fill our souls, to supply all our spiritual wants, and to help our infirmities.

2. It imports an actual participation of His influences and fruits in a large and plentiful measure.

(1) As men come to have every power and faculty of their souls more subject to the Spirit’s authority and under the influence proper to it.

(2) As they grow to experience His operations in all the several kinds of them.

(3) As His agency comes to be more stated and constant in them.

(4) As His grace becomes more mighty and operative in them, so as actually to produce its proper and genuine effects.

(5) As they taste such a sweetness and delight in the measure of participation attained that they reach forward with greater ardour toward perfection.

3. That every one should esteem the fulness of the Spirit a desirable thing.

(1) It puts us into a fit posture of mind for daily communion with God.

(2) Would settle our minds in the truest pleasure and peace.

4. That we should look upon it as an attainable good.

(1) From the Spirit’s own gracious benignity and His declared inclination to fill our souls.

(2) From the purchase and intercession of Christ.

(3) From the nature of the Spirit’s work in consequence of redemption.

(4) From the gospel being described as the ministration of the Spirit.

(5) From the declarations of God concerning the Spirit.

(6) From the instances of His grace already made in others.

(7) From the beginnings of His saving grace in themselves, good men may conclude the greatest heights attain able by them, if they be not wanting to themselves.—John Evans.

On being filled with the Spirit—

I. Implies that the Spirit has been largely given to the Church.

II. That as God has given the Spirit largely so He has been abundantly received.

III. Is to be possessed by His graces in all their variety.

IV. Is to be wholly guided by His influence and subject to His control.

V. Is to be the instrument of fulfilling His mission on earth.

VI. Is to have God as the only portion of the soul.—

1. The Spirit is God on the earth.

2. To be filled with the Spirit is to be fully occupied with God.—Stewart.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

d. Exhortation to a pure walk, with careful consideration of the Christian position

(Eph_5:15-21)

15See then that [how] ye walk circumspectly [strictly], not as fools [unwise men], but as wise, 16Redeeming the time [Buying up the opportunity], because the days are evil. 17Wherefore be ye not unwise [on this account do not become senseless], but understanding32 what the will of the Lord Isaiah 18 And be not drunk [made drunk] with wine, wherein is excess [or dissoluteness]; but be filled with [in] the Spirit; 19Speaking to yourselves [one another] in33 psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20Giving thanks always for all things unto [to] God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; 21Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God [Christ].34

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The exhortation; Eph_5:15-16. Eph_5:15. See then [or take heed].—Βλέπετε with ἵνα (1Co_16:10; 2Jn_1:8), with the accusative (Php_3:2; Col_4:17), here as in 1Co_3:10 with πῶς. Sollicitudo etiam modum spectat (Bengel). They are enjoined to take heed, and because (οὖν) as the comprehensive quotation (Eph_5:14) says, they are awake, have arisen, been enlightened by Christ, to a walk such as has been spoken of (ver.Ephesians 1 : “beloved children,” Eph_5:3 : “as becometh saints,” Eph_5:8 : “as children of the light”). Calvin is therefore too limited: Si aliorum discutere tenebras fideles debent fulgure suo, quanto minus cæcutire debent in proprio vitæ instituto; Meyer limits it also to Eph_5:10-11.35

How ye walk strictly [πῶς ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖτε].—According to the context πῶς is to be confined precisely to the ἀκριβῶς exacte ad voluntatem divinam (Luther’s rendering: vorsichtlich [so E. V.: circumspectly] is not sufficient); marking with the indicative that it is not first to be considered how this shall be taken hold of, but that it already exists in its best feature, the walk being an actual fact (Winer, p. 282). [Alford: “Take heed not only that your walk be exact, strict, but also of what sort that strictness is—not only that you have a rule and keep to it, but that that rule be the best one.” The indicative is not used for the subjunctive or the future; comp. Ellicott in loco and Fritzschiorum Opuscula, pp. 208 f, note.—R.]

Not as unwise men, but as wise [μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἁλλ̓ ὡς σοφοί].—“As,” marking as in Eph_1:8 the actual condition, and not comparative [Vulgate: quasi, is apt), designates the subject referred to in “take heed,” “walk,” as “wise.” Hence “not as unwise” (Bengel: qui præter propter viam ambulant), which is placed first for emphasis, denotes a subjective notion, which is inadmissible and unexpected as regards Christians. Winer, pp. 442, 567. Paul means Christians, in their walk, as indeed σοφός points to practice, walk, in works and evidences corresponding to the aim (Eph_1:8; Jam_3:13), and not philosophers (Grotius), whom he ironically terms ἀσόφους.

Eph_5:16. Buying up the opportunity, ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν—This describes the “wise” in their walk. The phrase (Col_4:5) recalls Dan_2:8 (LXX.: οἶδα ἐγὼ ὅτι καιρὸν ὑμεῖς ἐξαγοράζετε). Nebuchadnezzar says to the Chaldeans, his servants, plainly, that they only want to gain time. Here however sapienta et ἀκρίβεια præcipitur, non ignavia (Bengel). In distinction from the passage in Daniel, the article and the middle form are to be noticed. The right point of time, the appropriate time is the object of the ἐξαγοράζειν, the middle denotes that it is to be done for themselves, while the preposition ἐξ designates the complete entire character of the verb. Christians then should not allow τὸν καιρόν, to escape them, should seize the opportunity (χαιρός), though it costs them something in self-denial, after they have properly looked at it, like a skilful merchant, and then redeeming it out of the possession of sin, of slothfulness and pleasure, of the flesh and of darkness, should make it their own and use it for Christian walk. The time is then not to be taken as it is, nor is Luther correct: “adapt yourselves to the time.” Nor is it, to wait prudently and to temporize (Bengel), or merely, to use for the ἐλέγχειν (Flatt, Harless).

[In regard to this phrase, we may accept as established: 1. That καιρόν means opportunity, not time, hence that the E. V. conveys a wrong impression. 2. That all special references to those from whom the purchase is made (bad men, Bengel; the devil, Calvin), or to the price paid (all things, Chrysostom and others), are irrelevant and unwarranted. The participle is one of manner, the ἐξ is referred by Ellicott and Alford to the collecting out of, the buying up, “calling your times of good out of a land where there are few such flowers.” The exact sense then is: improve the opportunities which occur, looking out for them as a merchant, because the days are evil, and opportunities are rare; not as is often supposed: Be diligent in the use of time, because the days are few. The reference to Gen_47:9 will not justify this twisting of the next clause.—R.]

Because the days are evil, ὄτι αἱ ἡμέραι πονηραί εἰσιν—See Gen_47:9; 2Ti_3:1. The days, the present period of life, the αἰὼν οὖτος, in which sin has her glory (Olshausen), are therefore “evil” on account of sin, creating hindrances and temptations, leading even to apostasy; hence not simply full of difficulties, unfavorable circumstances (Rueckert).

Eph_5:17. The first point of view as respects the wise: the will of God. On this account, διὰ τοῦτο, refers to Eph_5:15-16, not merely as [Oecumenius, Rueckert, De Wette, Olshausen] Bleek and others think, to the reason (“the days are evil”) appended to the designation of the “wise.”

Become not senseless but understanding, μὴ γίνεσθη ἄφρονες, ἀλλὰ συνιέντες.—This can be said to those who are wise. For ἄφρον is qui mente non recte utitur (Tittmann, Syn. I., p. 143), and is joined with νήπιος in Rom_2:20. They should not become this; they are not yet so, since they are “wise.” [This is to be maintained against Alford, who as usual objects to rendering γίεσθε, become.—R.] The antithesis (“but”) is συνιέντες, “understanding” they should become discerning, and that is more than γινώσκοντες. A definite object is treated of, which in every case must be clear to the “wise,” but which can however easily remain not understood:

What the will of the Lord is, τί τὸ θέλημα τοῦ κυρίου, i.e., of Christ.—Non solum universo, sed certo Ioco, tempore, etc. (Bengel).36 This will reaching to what is least and most peculiar, is the object of the insight of the wise; the further he advances, the less is any thing to him merely permissible; everything becomes for him a precept and will from above. Act_21:15.

Eph_5:18. The second point of view: Their own person, its inspiration. And be not made drunk with wine, καὶ μὴ μεθύακεσθε οἴνῳ.—”And” adds a second point to the first; it is not then=in particular (Meyer), as though it introduced a single vice, for which there is no occasion given by the context, since no general pleasure has been spoken of, the species of which could be named.—[The view of Meyer is accepted by most recent English and American commentators. The objection of Braune is not valid, it would seem; for the thought of pleasure does not enter in this clause either. The general notion is “not senseless, but understanding,” and the special and emphatic subordinate thought is “not being drunk,” a connection which is obvious enough. The state of drunkenness is viewed not as a sensual pleasure, but as a “senseless” condition. Comp. Hodge.—R.] The precept, after the reference to the will of God and from its position in antithesis to what follows, contains in the special a reference to the general as is allowed and required by the Scriptural view. Luk_1:15; Luk_21:34; 1Th_5:6-8; 2Ti_4:5; 1Pe_1:13; 1Pe_4:7; 1Pe_5:8. So “the wine of the wrath “(Rev_14:8; Rev_14:10; Rev_18:3; Rev_19:15). The next clause points the same way.37

Wherein is excess, ἐν ᾧ ἐστὶν ἀσωτία.—Ἐν ᾧ refers to the μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ;38 in this there inheres as on a ground the fact (ἐστίν), which at the same time breaks out as a consequence. Ἀσωτία, the character of an ἅσωτος (ἄσωτος from σόω, σώζω), “past redemption” (Tit_1:6; 1Pe_4:4), in which one’s own character is corrupted (φθείρεσθαι, Eph_4:22). Tittmann, Syn. Ι. p. 152 f. [Comp. Trench, § XVI. The N. T. sense: dissoluteness, profligacy, seems to have arisen from the more common meaning of ἄσωτος: one who does not know how to save, i.e., a spendthrift.—R.] Hence Luther is incorrect in rendering it merely: unordentlich Wesen. Jerome incorrectly limits it to lascivious excesses; Koppe, De Wette and others to excess at the Agapæ, which are not suggested as in 1Co_11:21; Meyer and [most] others to the vice of drunkenness.

But be filled in the Spirit [ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι].—The antithesis is strongly marked (ἀλλά) and is to be found in πληροῦσθε, which stands first, as did μεθύσκεσθε, not in οἴνῳ and πνεύματι. [Hodge (with others) overlooks this in remarking: “To the Christian, therefore, the source of strength and joy is not wine, but the blessed Spirit of God.”—R.] The imperative: Be filled! is not to be taken merely as καταλλάγητε τῷ θεῷ (2Co_5:20), because it can be refused (Act_7:51) as well as requested (Luk_11:13), but because Christians in the strength of God have to be faithful and to show zeal, in order to increase and become complete; much then depends on themselves. This is an entirely different becoming full from being “drunk with wine.” The qualification: ἐν πνεύματι, and not πνεύματι, is not an antithesis to οἴνῳ), but designates in and upon what the becoming full takes place, not in flesh and blood, but in the spirit of man, his better part. It is not instrumental, which cannot be established by Eph 1:24; Php_4:19, as Meyer supposes, nor does it refer to the Holy Spirit (most expositors down to Bleek) or to our spirit and God’s Spirit. That we should be filled with the Holy Ghost is indicated by the context, but not by ἐν πνεύματι. [The instrumental sense of ἐν, if accepted, must not exclude the more usual meaning: “with and in the Spirit” (Eadie, Ellicott). Here also, as in Eph_4:23, the exact sense of πνεύματι, in view of the preposition chosen, is neither the human spirit (Braune), nor the Personal Holy Spirit, but the human spirit as acted upon by the Holy Spirit (Alford and others). Comp. Romans, p. 235.—R.] Flacius: præclara ebrietas, quæ, sobrietatem mentis operator! Comp. Psa_36:8-10; Act_2:15-18.

Closer definition of becoming full in spirit [or the Spirit]; Eph_5:19-21. a. Social Song; Eph_5:19 a. b. Singing in private; Eph_5:19 b. c. Continual thankfulness; Eph_5:20. d. Proper conduct in one’s position; Eph_5:21.

Eph_5:19 a. Speaking to one another, λαλοῦντες ἑαυτοῖς.—The participle denotes the most immediate expression of this being filled in spirit by the Holy Spirit, and this result as an exercise re-acts as a means for furthering the fulness. Spiritus facit fideles Disertos (Bengel). Ἑαυτοῖς, as in Eph_4:32; Col_3:16, is=ἀλλήλοις. In intercourse, in social circles, they return, in every case, to this point of speaking as is here described. [The reference to both social intercourse and public assemblies is now usually accepted. The reciprocal action on their hearts rather than the antiphonal method with their lips, is implied in the reflexive pronoun.—R.] It is not then=meditantes vobiscum (Morus). The double sense: from inward impulse, with one another (Stier), is inadmissible, as well as the limitation to public assemblies for worship (Olshausen).

In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, ψαλμοῖς καὶ ὕμνοις καὶ ᾠδαῖς πνευματικῖς.—Luther is incorrect: by Psalms. Since ψαλμός is something historical (Luk_20:42; Luk_24:44; Act_1:20; Act_13:33), the word should here retain the meaning of Old Testament Psalms, which were well-known and had been accepted in the public service (Apost. Constitutions, II. 57, Ephesians 5 : τοὺς τοῦ Δαβὶδ ψαλλέτω ϋμνους); ὕμνος is a song of praise, according to the context (Eph_5:19 : “to the Lord”) and to history (Pliny in Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte, Ι. 1, p. Eph 136: Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem), to Christ, hence more strictly Christian hymns, songs of Jesus; ὠδαὶ πνευματικαί are spiritual songs in general, productions of the Holy Ghost in the department of poetry as regards form, out of the Christian life as regards substance, distinguished from hymns as the spiritual song is distinguished from a song for the Church and congregation, by being more general as regards matter and intended more for individual needs and private use. Stier hits it very nearly with his threefold distinction: Scriptural, congregational, private. It is improper to take the first as applicable to Jewish Christians, the second to Gentile Christians, and the third as referring to an expression understood by every one alike (Harless) or the last as the genus, the first as a hymn with musical accompaniment, the other as a song of praise, improvised, when it is true that out of the head as well as out of the heart only that which is known can be used, or that the heaping of terms is due to the lively and urgent discourse (Meyer and others), since he is not speaking of the day of Pentecost or of the gift of tongues (Act_2:4; Act_10:46; Act_19:6; 1Co_14:15; 1Co_14:26) but of the orderly and regular course of things in the church; nor should all distinctions be rejected (Rueckert).39 “Spiritual” belongs to the undefined “songs,” not to “psalms and hymns” (Stier), which are confessedly productions of the Holy Ghost; the word means precisely this however, and not merely that Christian thoughts and feelings find expression therein (Baumgarten-Crusius). Evidently the Apostle marks that Christians should interweave such into their conversation, often passing in joyous mood into united song, not however that such only should be recited, uninterruptedly said or sung.

Eph_5:19 b. Singing in private. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.—Joined as a co-ordinate clause without a connecting particle. The participle ᾅδοντες καὶ ψὰλλοντες designate what is related, singing, the former in melody, the latter in recitative; the added phrase (ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν) however marks something different, that is done alone and inwardly. [So Harless, Meyer, Olshausen, Alford, Ellicott and others. Hodge favors what was once the common view: that the clause is subordinate, defining the mode or moral quality of the preceding one. But Harless has shown that such a view is incompatible with the presence of ὑμῶν, and few grammatical commentators have since differed from him.—R.] Here the social song re-echoes, here also is its ground and source. This is even stronger: not merely when excited in the company of others, to become joyously full of the Spirit, but to be that when alone also in disposition and desire “to the Lord” (τῷ κυρίῳ). Act_2:47; Jam_5:13.

Eph_5:20. Continual thankfulness. Giving thanks always for all things, εὐ χαριστοῦντες πάντοτε ὑπὲρ πάντων —Thus by the side of the joy is described that circumspect sobriety and thoughtfulness, which at all times and in all things sees and feels God’s gracious hand, not merely singing, in public and private, in order to ask, but giving thanks uninterruptedly through the whole life. This is no popular, hyperbolical expression (Meyer); it is an established injunction of the Apostle (Eph_6:18; Col_3:17; Col_4:2; 1Th_5:19; Rom_12:12). Sufferings are included also (Chrysostom and others). [Hodge follows Meyer, in needlessly limiting πάντα to blessedness.—R.] It is indeed so difficult, that it is possible only for him who has God in Christ. Hence:

To God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ [ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί].—“In the name” designates the manifested, known and acknowledged Person (“of our Lord Jesus Christ”), in whom, that is: in fellowship with whom the situation in question is experienced: giving thanks (Col_3:17), asking (Joh_14:13), commanding (2Th_3:6), being baptized (Act_10:48), reproached (1Pe_4:14), saved (Act_4:12). We either bear or experience what He permits to be laid upon us or occur to us, or we act in His service, in longing after Him, or in the consciousness of His mediation (per quem omnia nobis contingunt, Bengel); it is=ἐν Χριστῷ (Eph_3:21); similar to διὰ Χριστοῦ (Rom_7:25). Without Him we would have no living God, whom we thanked, least of all in Him the Father. The article (τῷ) points to the God known to us, and the phrase “God and the Father” indicates that the same God is a Father for us, our God and Father. It is incorrect to refer πατρί to Christ (Harless, Meyer). [On this august title, comp. Eph_1:3; Gal_1:4; it seems perfectly proper to accept a reference of a general character: the Father, our Father and the Father of our Lord, without limiting it to either or here emphasizing either.—R.]

Eph_5:21. Proper conduct in one’s position. Submitting yourselves one to another.—Ὑποτασσόμενοι, a co-ordinating participle [not to be taken as an imperative, Calvin and others.—R.], refers to the position, also a gift and ordinance of God, in which one should be considerate and contented as regards superiors and inferiors (ἀλλήλοις), in piety, as well as in charity, in service in each direction, but: in the fear of Christ, ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ—According to 2Co_5:11 (“the fear [not “terror,” E. V.] of the Lord”) and 1Co_10:22 (“Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than He?”), this means fear before Him, as the present Lord, the Head,40 marking the tender awe of the conscientious, the humble and zealous imitation, not the fear before the Judge (Harless, Meyer and others).

[Hodge connects this verse with what follows, a view which is very convenient, but not grammatically admissible, though Eph_5:22 ff. do carry out the thought in detail. He says his view is generally accepted, but the view of Braune is held by Knapp, Tischendorf, Rueckert, Harless, Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Eadie, in fact by every recent commentator, who gives due place to grammatical considerations, Olshausen excepted. The connection is difficult however. Ellicott finds here named a comprehensive moral duty in regard to man (after the three duties in regard to God) the exact connecting link being “thanking God for all things (for sorrows as well, submitting yourselves to Him, yea) submitting yourselves one to another.” Alford thinks the thought is suggested by Eph_5:18 : “that as we are otherwise to be filled, otherwise to sing and rejoice, so also we are otherwise to behave—not blustering nor letting our voices rise in selfish vaunting, as such men do—but subject to one another,” etc. So Eadie.—R.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The Christian mode of life is precisely wisdom, which has first of all as a pre-supposition the possession of the truth, and is essentially the appropriation and acquisition of truth, or the capacity and readiness, clearly perceiving the truth in every case, position and event, to use it in life, by which use it is not squandered, but increased for the possessor. It is truth becoming or already made practical. It is not a knowing much, but a unity of the knowledge of the truth, a unity referred to the kingdom of God, and hence the doing of the truth; Christian morality is true wisdom, it is of a thoroughly ethical nature, although it never renounces its intellectual character. It is the common bond of truth, love, freedom and rectitude. It takes notice of all, world and nature, the heart itself and men about it, sorrow and joy, circumstances and events, rights and duties, the past and future and present, and above all, what concerns the soul, God’s word and counsel, and the course of His kingdom. It learns experience in all and gains a certain tact, which grows in clearness and confidence, so that it readily knows, what it ought to do and why, while at the same time it is willing and able to do it. Accordingly correct life and correct doctrine meet together in wisdom. Prudence is a natural gift; a child, an unsanctified man, may be prudent. It is only formal, mainly without regard to a definite object; you may be prudent in temporal, even in shameful things, as well as in Divine, eternal things; in the latter you ought to be or become so. Prudence is circumspection, insight, intelligence, discrimination, appreciation and estimation; wisdom applies it to what concerns God and the soul, to the department of practical ethics.

2. A principal trait of wisdom and Christian morality is the improvement of the time, in which it considers and effects what is eternal. Every moment of time is of value to it to be used for the eternal: it perceives the transitoriness of time, but hastens the more to use it as an opportunity, to improve it for eternity. Like a merchant, it makes traffic in time to gain in eternity. Every year, every greater or smaller portion of time, is viewed and treated with reference to the God-appointed duties, so that time appears as measured out eternity. Wisdom fears to destroy time, avoids mere pastime,41 is unwilling merely to enjoy time, regarding it rather as a season, given of God’s eternal grace, in which the power of body and soul bestowed by God, operates for the glory of His name and the soul’s own salvation, so that from this no complaint or accusation arises.—Precisely the evil days, which continue as long as sin has power, it views as the set time and urgent occasion to wholesome improvement.

3. The two main points of view for wisdom are: Understanding of the Divine Will and active circumspection of spirit. The first is the everywhere valid and objectively given foundation of the Divine will, with which nothing that will be moral, Christian, wise, dare enter into opposition. All culture which lacks an intimate, lively regard for the will of God, is without wisdom also, hence foolish, despite all knowledge and clever character. The other however is sobriety. Stier:—“Not only every passion, every merely sensuous pleasure, every dissipation leaving the heart unguarded and lost in the creature, every waste of time called pastime, even the most dutiful, sober ‘business,’ if it entirely absorbs, has in it something intoxicating; before all however is it the fanaticism of opinion, of error, which the devil will present to us in the most various mixtures, often under the most enticing appearance, out of the great intoxicating cup of the spirit of the age, ‘of the power of the air’ (Revelation 17).” Or one might present a gradation from the common intoxication with wine or brandy, to the “most spirited” form of a “lay-breviary.”

[The particular precept must not be overlooked in the general application. Eadie well remarks: “There is in the vice of intemperance that kind of dissoluteness which brooks no restraint, which defies all efforts to reform it, and which sinks lower and lower into hopeless and helpless ruin. There are few vices out of which there is less hope of recovery—its haunts are so numerous and its hold is so tremendous.” Especially when the craving opens the door to covetousness on the part of the dealer and manufacturer, so that the victim is poisoned as well as besotted. No wonder that such a tremendous evil has driven most philanthropists and Christians to the advocacy of forcible measures for its prevention. Still the remedy is not law, but gospel. And “the freedom of the gospel” should never become a yoke of bondage. The two apparently contradictory principles to be reconciled in Christian practice, are (Col_2:16): “Let no man judge you in eating or in drinking,” and (Rom_14:21): “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine,” etc.—R.]

4. As a help to sobriety the Apostle sets forth first, the use in common of Christian hymns, which should be used, though not exclusively, in public service. In this the Psalms, as Scriptural songs, with their parallelisms, probably gave rise to antiphonal singing between minister and congregation, the songs of praise (“hymns”), as ecclesiastical songs to hypophonal singing, in which the congregation repeated the last line of the stanza sung by the choir, and the spiritual songs, as Christians, to symphonal singing. The Holy Ghost, who presides in the Church, wrought beyond the word of Scripture, made art in word and tone serviceable to the Church, exercising His power in connection with public service and even in social intercourse. So then beside the use in common there must also be a solitary digging into such poetical treasures and a private application of them. Further, every gift should be constantly esteemed, recognized and used accordingly. Finally however in humility every relation of subordination ordained by God is to be regarded and maintained unimpaired; social institutions are God’s institutions.

[In regard to singing in public worship and social intercourse, Eph_5:19 plainly shows that other than the Old Testament Psalms were and may still be sung. There is no warrant in the word of God for the exclusion of all hymns composed since the canon of Scripture was closed. Such a view owes its origin to causes quite as much political as religious, and perhaps always more national and local than logical or theological. Still it must be said that this extreme is fostered by a proper antagonism to what is now admitted into the public and especially the social services of Christians. It were better to sing nothing else than the Psalms than to encourage the introduction into congregations of hymn-books, born, not of spiritual feeling, but of pecuniary greed. Especially is it unfortunate that the children in our Sunday Schools are taught bad taste in music, bad morals and worse doctrine by what they sing. The full effect of this mistake has not yet appeared. Comp. Colossians, p. 72.—“Christ is the centre of sacred art as well as of theology and religion. From Him music has drawn its highest inspiration. The hymns of Jesus are the Holy of holies in the temple of sacred poetry. From this sanctuary every doubt is banished; here the passions of sense, pride and unholy ambition give way to the tears of penitence, the joys of faith, the emotions of love, the aspirations of hope, the anticipations of heaven; here the dissensions of rival churches and theological schools are hushed into silence; here the hymnists of ancient, mediæval and modern times, from every section of Christendom, unite with one voice in the common adoration of a common Saviour. He is the theme of all ages, tongues, and creeds, the Divine harmony of all human discords, the solution of all the dark problems of life” (Schaff, Christ in Song, preface). To banish Christian hymns is to exclude from this Holy of holies, but to substitute for them unworthy, unspiritual, and unchristian rhymes is to profane it.—R.]

5. The principle, impulse and norm of all Christian morality, of the new, Divine life, is Jesus Christ, the Fulfiller of the Law and Divine Will; for He is “the manifestation of the willing Divinity and fulfilling humanity (Harless, Christliche Ethik, p. 362). All other motives adulterate or counterfeit the new life.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The Christian has not like a philosopher first to seek the truth; “as wise,” he possesses it and must evidence it in his walk. With the philosopher all depends upon exactness and acuteness in the tide of his thoughts, with the Christian, however, upon his care in the course of his conduct; the former works out a system, the latter a fine character; the former will grow, while his forerunner decreases, the latter will decrease, but his forerunner must grow in him.—Christian wisdom as manifested in the acceptance and application of three proverbs: 1. Time is money! 2. Time gained, all gained! 3. Good fishing in troubled waters!—He who does not become wise in hard evil days, certainly remains a fool in good days.—It is just the evil days that you should not let pass by unimproved, for in the evil days of earthly life in this valley of tears we must gain for the good days in eternal life on God’s throne.—The evil days are only the so-called bad weather so needed for the growth of the inner min and God’s plants.—There are periodicals and books of all kinds, especially novels, which are like cups full of intoxicating wine, and instead of being bread, they should be burned like the books of magic in Ephesus (Act_19:19).—The house and household life should not be isolated from the Church and its services, especially its lovely, consolatory, precious hymns.—Thankfulness and humility are two principal emotions of a glad Christian heart: the former sees the gifts, which it has received from the Lord, the latter the duties He has appointed. Without serving love that Christian exaltation is not true, but a lie. The Christian must not ask; Who should minister to me, but: to whom should I minister?

Starke: Foresight and wisdom belong to Christianity: not the cunning of this world, but the prudence of the righteous. It is like a bee, drawing honey from good and bad examples alike.—Redeem the time then, and give good heed to the blessed hours, when the Spirit of God knocks at thy heart. Many men are laden down with so much work in their avocation, that they often do not have the proper time for eating, still less for reading God’s word, prayer, and other godly practices: it is especially necessary for these persons to forestall and even to steal time, that they may gain an occasional opportunity for spiritual exercises and collecting their heart before God; and besides this to accustom themselves to lift their heart to God in the midst of business, and to carry on the same in the fear of God.—The will of the Lord is our rule, to know and follow it is the greatest wisdom.—Wine is a good gift of God; but alas! all gifts of God are abused, and so is wine.—In one heart there may not dwell at the same time the fulness of the Spirit and the fulness of the world: God does not enter unless the creature retires thence.—Our Church has a rich treasure of spiritual songs ever increasing; it is a shame that they are so often sung without knowledge or thought,—Great benefits demand great thankfulness.—The fear of God is the bond, which should so unite all Christians together, that they submit to and serve one another.

Rieger. The evil mixture of light and darkness with which so many are pleased, and in which they seek their wisdom, will, as folly, become their shame. In a wise walk every child of the light looks chiefly to himself and the keeping of his own way.—In the adapting one’s self to the time, or redeeming the time, one looks to others also, how they are to be approached, or to be served, which is not the same in one case as in another.—Luxury in eating and drinking hinders true wisdom very much.

Heubner: One can permit himself to be robbed of much time. Amici fures temporis. Redeeming the time is opposite of whiling away the time. It is a frivolous thought, that of regarding time as an evil. There is a great difference between the worldly wise and the Christian mode of making time profitable. The former seeks to gain as great a pecuniary advantage as possible out of circumstances of time; the Christian regards the pressure and the evil of the time as a means to spiritual gain, as an exercise to faith, and hence places himself in a spiritual attitude to the time; he is for example, prepared for great sacrifices, for privations, sorrows and afflictions, which he has to bear, for difficult duties, disturbances and the like. To the worldly man that time is evil, when his pleasure is interrupted or hindered by sickness, scarcity, etc. The Christian holds that for the evil time, when virtue decreases and is made more difficult for himself, when the good have much to suffer, and the enticements to faithfulness and apostasy are great.—There is also a great inward song, when at work, on a journey or a walk, etc. Such singing imparts a quiet, glad, godly tone to the spirit. Learn good hymns by heart therefore.—The Epistle for the 20th Sunday after Trinity; Eph_5:15-21 : The Christian disposition—the best help in evil days. 1. It gives wisdom to understand and to use aright the evil days (Eph_5:15-17). 2. It gives us cheerful courage, aroused not by wild intoxication, but by God’s Spirit, fitting us for proper reflection (Eph_5:18-20). 3. It teaches the willingness to serve one another in the right way (Eph_5:21).—The duty of the Christian, to adapt himself to the time. 1. What it requires? a) Wisdom which bears unavoidable evil as of God’s sending, not murmuring, nor resisting, nor walking uncircumspectly therein, b) Wholesome use of it for the soul’s benefit. 2. Means: a) Knowledge of the Divine Will, of the purposes of Divine Providence and of our salvation, b) Religious inspiration and meditation. 3. The blessing: a) For us; all must serve for our profit, that we give God thanks: b) For others, that we serve and help them.

Passavant: It is no easy matter to set the right bounds to our joys; one drop follows another, pleasure entices to sensuality, joyousness to wantonness, forgetfulness to intoxication.—We must give thanks for every gratification even the smallest, which we enjoy from our Heavenly Father through Christ; for every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places and possessions. Whoever understands this, knows how to give thanks to the great Giver for every temporal and earthly good also, even the least.

Stier: The walk of a Christian to his goal is a worthy, exact, correct walking; only thus does he find and follow his path. In continuously increasing exactness and strictness as respects our disposition and conduct, we grow out of folly into complete wisdom.—To gain the time is something other than to gain time.—To seek and to use opportunities, to make a prudent choice of the point of time, to esteem time and be busy accordingly, to use prudently and circumspectly the time with its circumstances, this is the meaning of redeeming the time.—The special public service should not and must not be something altogether sundered from the private life of the Church.—The ministry must always reach the spirit, lay the foundation anew; but the congregation comes in with its praying, responding, singing, praising.—The thankful taking and returning of God’s grace is itself true gracefulness.—The root of all apostasy and disobedience is ingratitude.

On the Epistle for the 20th Sunday after Trinity (Eph_5:15-21): Gesetz und Zeugniss, 1862 [a German theological periodical]: How does the wisdom of the Christian display itself in walk? 1. In a circumspect walk (strait gate, narrow is the way; the days are evil). 2. In an industrious use of the means of grace (the Lutheran Church, the triumphing one, with large capital of the Holy Ghost). 3. In humble conduct. (As the most worthy proof of reason is in sobriety, and the greatest blessedness of a correct walk is shown in a life full of thanksgiving, so in various forms of submission the most delicate tact of this life appears. Thus are added the noblest limitations of life and the purest and most considerate forbearance in all relations.—Löhe.)

Brandt: Earnest demands of the gospel in an evil time. 1. It is a time of ignorance respecting Divine things, and it calls out to us in Eph_5:17. 2. It is a time of the dominion of disorderly lusts and propensities, and we are warned as in Eph_5:18. 3. It is a time of ecclesiastical lukewarmness, and enforces the precept of Eph_5:19-20. 4. A time of restless excitement, saying to us as in Eph_5:21.

Rautenberg. The prudence of the children of God in the evil time. 1. They secure to themselves a free hand, to seek their safety—amid all the power of the evil time; 2. An open ear for God’s will—amid all self-will of the evil time; 3. A well-prepared heart for the gift of the Holy Ghost—amid all the carnal mind of the evil time, a joyful spirit in the Lord—amid all the complaints of the evil time. Staudt: The life of the new man 1) in foresight, 2) insight, 3) penetration (Durchricht).

Pröhle: Rules of Christian practical Wisdom 1. Prudent foresight. 2. Earnest retrospect. 3. Pious insight. 4. Moderation in pleasure. 5. Practice in sacred Song of Solomon 6. Constant thanks to God. 7. Due subordination.—Become Full of the Spirit! 1. Full of the Spirit, 2. Full.

[Eadie: Eph_5:15. Wisdom and not mere intelligence was to characterize them; that wisdom which preserves in rectitude, guides amidst temptations, and affords a lesson of consistency to surrounding spectators.—It is a strange infatuation to be obliged in pointing others to heaven, to point over one’s shoulder.

Eph_5:18. Drunkenness was indeed an epidemic in those times and lands. Plato boasts of the immense quantities of liquor which Socrates could swill uninjured; and the philosopher Xenocrates got a golden crown from Dionysius for swallowing a gallon at a draught.—It is a sensation of want—a desire to fly from himself, a craving after something which is felt to be out of reach, eager and restless thirst to enjoy, if at all possible, some happiness and enlargement of heart—that usually leads to intemperance. But the Spirit fills Christians, and gives them all the elements of cheerfulness and peace; genuine, elevation and mental freedom; superiority to all depressing influences; and refined and permanent enjoyment.

Eph_5:19. Mere music is but an empty sound; for compass of voice, graceful execution, and thrilling notes are a vain offering in themselves.

Eph_5:20. So many and so salutary are the lessons imparted by chastisement—so much mercy is mingled up in all their trials—so many proofs are experienced of God’s staying “his rough wind in the day of His east wind,” that the saints will not hang their harps on the willows, but engage in earnest and blessed minstrelsy.

Eph_5:21. This Christian virtue is not cringing obsequiousness; and while it stands opposed to rude and dictatorial insolence, and to that selfish preference for our opinion and position which amounts to a claim of infallibility, it is not inconsistent with that honest independence of disposition and sentiment which every rational and responsible being must exercise. It lays the foundation also, as is seen in the following context for the discharge of relative duty,—it should be seen to develop itself in all the relations of domestic life.—Schenkel: The duty of subordination in the Christian Church: 1. It rests on the recognition of natural and historical distinctions, ordained by God Himself; 2. It has its pattern in the relation of believers to Christ, which is not one of servile fear, but of moral reverence.—R.]

Footnotes:

[32]Eph_5:17.—The reading of the Rec. (συνιέντες) is supported by D.3 K. L., nearly all cursives, many fathers and good versions (Tischendorf, Ellicott and most); συνίοντες is found in D.l F, G., some versions (Harless, Meyer, Alford, earliest editions); the imperative: συνίετε has good support (א. A. B., 6 cursives, Chrysostom, Jerome), accepted by Lachmann and Alford (ed. 4). The last appears to be a correction, the participle being lectio difficilior, so that of the two participial readings the first is to be preferred on external grounds.—R.]

[33]Eph_5:19.—[Lachmann and Alford insert ἐν in brackets before ψαλμοῖς, but as it is found only in B., 5 cursives, some versions, and could so readily enter into an explanatory gloss, it is generally rejected.—Both editors bracket πνευματικαῖς on much the same authority, doubting it as a probable interpolation from Col_3:16; but it might readily be omitted in a few cases from homœteleuton (Meyer).—Ταῖς καρδιαις, instead of τῇ καρδίᾳ (Rec. א.1 B. K. L.) is found in א.3 A. D. F., but is rejected by Teschendorf, Ellicott, Alford and most, as an emendation derived from Col_3:16.—R.]

[34]Eph_5:21.—[The reading of the Rec. (θεοῦ) has no uncial support; while Χριστοῦ is found in nearly all MSS., and accepted by all recent editors.—R.]

[35][Eadie follows Calvin, Hodge follows Meyer, as respects οὖν, while Alford and Ellicott take the particle as resumptive from the περιπατεῖτε in Eph_5:8, and what followed it there. This is preferable unless the extended view of Braune be accepted.—R.]

[36][The E. V. with its order: “what the will of the Lord is,” suggests this definite knowledge in special circumstances, hence to alter it, as some propose, to: “what is the will of the Lord,” would be not only unnecessary, but unfortunate.—R.]

[37][It is to be feared that the rising from the spiritual to the general renders too indefinite the very important precept of the Apostle. We may well hold fast to the plain literal meaning: “do not be made drunk with wine;” this is an injunction deserving all the prominence it receives, even if no general sense be appended.—R.]

[38][In which vice, in the becoming drunk (Meyer, Alford and most), not in the wine, the use of which is not forbidden (comp. 1Ti_5:23; Col_2:16; Col_2:20-23), although our passage proves that it was intoxicating.—R.]

[39][While rigorous distinctions are not to be insisted upon, we may accept in the main the view of Braune. Ellicott: “Much curious information Will be found in the article, ‘Hymni a Christianis decantandi,’ in Deyling, Obs. No. 44, Vol. III, p. 430 sq.: for authorities, see Fabricius, Bibliogr. Antiq. XI. 13, and for specimens of the ancient ὕμνοι, ibid., Bibl. Græca, Book V. I. 24.” In the fourth volume of Tischendorf’s Monumenta Sac. Sued., some hymns are found at the close of the Psalter, but the MSS. is incomplete, leaving us with a hymn incomplete.—In the face of such testimony there can be no question that the early church was not confined to the Old Testament Psalms.—R.]

[40][“Rara phrasis, Bengel; of Him, whose members we all are, so that any displacement in the Body is a forgetfulness of the reverence due to Him “(Alford).—R.]

[41][What relaxation the body demands is certainly not forbidden by Eph_5:16. If any one thinks that he is better redeeming the opportunity by so overtasking his brain or his conscience either, as to die early or be laid upon a bed of sickness, or unfitted for duty by dyspepsia, melancholy or what not, he makes a great mistake. What God says so plainly in our frames is not to be overborne by seemingly pious principles; if it is, God punishes us.—R.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EPHESIANS

REDEEMING THE TIME

Eph 5:15-16

Some of us have, in all probability, very little more ‘time’ to ‘redeem.’ Some of us have, in all probability, the prospect of many years yet to live. For both classes my text presents the best motto for another year. The most frivolous among us, I suppose, have some thoughts when we step across the conventional boundary that seems to separate the unbroken sequence of moments into periods; and as you in your business take stock and see how your accounts stand, so I would fain, for you and myself, make this a moment in which we may see where we are going, what we are doing, and how we are using this great gift of life.

My text gives us the true Christian view of time. It tells us what to do with it, and urges by implication certain motives for the conduct.

I. We have, first, what we ought to think about ‘the time.’

There are two words in the New Testament, both of which are translated time, but they mean very different things. One of them, the more common, simply implies the succession of moments or periods; the other, which is employed here, means rather a definite portion of time to which some definite work or occurrence belongs. It is translated sometimes season, sometimes opportunity. Both these renderings occur in immediate proximity in the Epistle to the Galatians, where the Apostle says: ‘As we have therefore opportunity let us do good to all men, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not....’ And, again, it is employed side by side with the other word to which I have referred, in the Acts of the Apostles, where we read, ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons’-the former word simply indicating the succession of moments, the latter word indicating epochs or crises to which special work or events belong.

And so here ‘redeeming the time’ does not merely mean making the most of moments, but means laying hold of, and understanding the special significance of, life as a whole, and of each succeeding instant of it as the season for some specific duty. It is not merely ‘time,’ it is ‘the time’; not merely the empty succession of beats of the pendulum, but these moralised, as it were, heightened, and having significance, because each is apprehended as having a special mission, and affording an opportunity for a special work.

Now, there are two aspects of that general thought, on each of which I would touch. The Apostle here uses the singular number, and speaks not of the times, but of ‘the time’; as if the whole of life were an opportunity, a season for some one clear duty which manifestly belongs to it, and is meant to be done in it.

What is that? There are a great many ways of answering that question, but even more important perhaps than the way of answering is the mood of mind which asks it. If we could only get into this, as our habitual temper and disposition, asking ourselves what life is for, then we should have conquered nine-tenths of our temptations, and all but secured that we shall aim at the purpose which thus clearly and constantly shines before us. Oh! if I could get some of my friends here this morning, who have never really looked this solemn question in the face, to rise above the mere accidents of their daily occupations, and to take their orders, not from circumstances, or from the people whom they admire and imitate, but at first hand from considering what they really are here for, and why their days in their whole sweep are given them, I should not have spoken in vain. The sensualist answers the question in one way, the busy Manchester man in another, the careful, burdened mother in another, the student in another, the moralist in another. But all that is good in each answer is included in the wider one, that the end of life, the purpose for which ‘the season’ is granted us, is that ‘we should glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.’

I do not care whether you say that the end for which we live is the salvation of our souls, or whether you put it in other words, and say that it is the cultivation and perfecting of a Christ-like and God-pleasing character, or whether you admit still another aspect, and say that it is the intention of time to prepare us for that which lies beyond time. Time is the lackey of eternity, and the chamberlain that opens the gates of the Kingdom of God. All these various answers are at bottom one. Life is ours mainly in order that, by faith in Jesus Christ, we should struggle, and do, and by struggles, by sorrows, and by all that befalls us, should grow liker Him, and so fitter for the calm joys of that place where the throb of the pendulum has ceased, and the hours are stable and eternal. We live here in order to get ready for living yonder. And we get ready for living yonder, when here we understand that every moment of life is granted us for the one purpose, which can be pursued through all life-viz. the becoming liker our dear Lord, and the drinking in to our own hearts more of His Spirit, and moulding our characters more in conformity with His image. That is what my life and yours are given us for. If we succeed in that, we succeed all round. If we fail in that, whatever else we succeed in, we have failed altogether.

But then, remember, still further, the other aspect in which we can look at this thought. That ultimate, all-embracing end is reached through a multitude of nearer and intermediate ones. Whilst life, as a whole, is the season for learning to know and for possessing God, life is broken up into smaller portions and periods, each of which has some special duty appropriate to it and a ‘lesson for the day.’

Now many of us, who entirely agree, theoretically, in saying that all life is granted for this highest purpose, go wrong here and fail to discern the significance of single moments. To-day is always commonplace; it is yesterday that is beautiful, and to-morrow that is full of possibilities, to the vulgar mind. But to-day is common and low. There are mountains ahead and mountains behind, purple with distance and radiant with sunshine, and the sky bends over them and seems to touch their crests. But here, on the spot where we stand, life seems flat and mean, and far away from the heavens. We admit the meaning of life taken altogether, but it is very hard to break up that recognition into fragments, and to feel the worth of these fleeting moments which, just because they are here, seem to be of small account. So we forget that life is only the aggregate of small present instants, and that the hour is sixty times sixty insignificant seconds, and the day twenty-four brief hours, and the year 365 commonplace days, and the life threescore years and ten. Brethren, carry your theoretical recognition of the greatness and solemnity of the purposes for which life has been given here into each of the moments of the passing day, and you will find that there is nothing so elastic as time; and that you can crowd into a day as much as a languid thousand years do sometimes hold, of sacrifice and service, of holy joys, and of likeness to Jesus Christ. He who has learned that all the moments are heavy with significance, and pregnant with immortal issues, he, too, in some measure may share in the prerogative of the timeless God, and to Him ‘one day may be as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’ It is not the beat of the pendulum or the tick of the clock that measure time, but it is the deeds which we crowd into it, and the feelings and thoughts which it ministers to us. This passing life draws all its importance from the boundless eternal issues to which it leads. Every little puddle on the paving-stones this morning, a quarter of an inch broad and a film deep, will be mirroring bright sunshine, and blue with the reflected heaven. And so we may make the little drop of our lives radiant with the image of God, and bright with the certainties of immortality.

II. Now, note secondly, how to make the most of the season.

‘Redeeming the time,’ says the Apostle. The figure is very simple and natural, and has only been felt to be difficult and obscure, because people have tried to ride the metaphor further than it was meant. The questions of who is the seller and what is the price do not enter into the Apostle’s mind at all. Metaphors are not to be driven so far as that. We have to confine ourselves to the simple thought that there is a need for making the opportunity which is given truly our own; and that that can only be done by giving something in exchange for it. That is the notion of purchase, is it not? Acquisition, by giving something else. Thus, says Paul, you have to buy the opportunity which time affords us.

That is to say, to begin with, life gives us opportunities and no more. We may, in and through it, become wise, good, pure, happy, noble, Christ-like, or we may not. The opportunity is there, swinging, as it were, in vacuo. Lay hold of it, says he, and turn it into more than an opportunity-even an actuality and a fact.

And how is that to be done? We have to give something away, if we get the opportunity for our very own. What have we to give away? Well, mainly the lower ends for which the moment might serve. These have to be surrendered-sometimes abandoned altogether, always rigidly restricted and kept in utter subordination to the highest purposes. To-day is given us mainly that we may learn to know God better, and to love Him more, and to serve Him more joyfully. Our daily duties are given us for the same purpose. But if we go about them without thinking of God or the highest ends which life is meant to serve, then we shall certainly lose the highest ends, and an opportunity will go past us unimproved. But if, on the other hand, whilst we follow our daily business for the sake of legitimate temporal gain, we see, above that, the aspect of daily life as educating in all Christian nobleness and lofty thoughts and purposes, then we shall have given away the lower ends for the sake of attaining the higher. You live, suppose, to found a business, to become masters of your trade, to gain wisdom and knowledge, to establish for yourselves a position amongst your fellow-men, to cultivate your character so as to grow in wisdom and purity, apart from God. Or you live in order to win affection and move thankfully in the heaven of loving associations in your home, amongst your children. Or you live for the sake of carrying some lower but real good amongst men. Many of these ends are beautiful and noble, and necessary for the cultivation and discharge of the various duties and relationships of life; but unless they are all kept secondary, and there towers above them this other, life is wasted. If life is not to be wasted, they must be bartered for the higher, and we must recognise that to give all things for the sake of Christ and His love is wise merchandise and good exchange. ‘What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea! doubtless, and I count all things but loss that I may win Him and be found of Him.’ You must barter the lower if you are to secure the higher ends for which life is the appointed season.

And then, still more minutely, my text gives us another suggestion about this ‘redeeming the time.’ ‘See, then,’ says the Apostle, ‘that ye walk circumspectly.’ The word rendered circumspectly might better, perhaps, be translated in some such way as ‘strictly,’ ‘rigidly,’ ‘accurately,’ ‘punctiliously.’ As I take it, it is to be connected with the ‘walk,’ and not with the ‘see, then,’ as the Revised Version does.

So here is a practical direction, walk strictly, accurately, looking to your feet; as a man would do who was upon what they call in the Alps an arrete. Suppose a narrow ridge of snow piled on the top of a ledge of rock, with a precipice of 5000 feet on either side, and a cornice of snow hanging over empty space. The climber puts his alpenstock before his foot, he tests with his foot before he rests his weight, for a false step and down he goes!

‘See that you walk circumspectly,’ rigidly, accurately, punctiliously. Live by law-that is to say, live by principles which imply duties; for to live by inclination is ruin. The only safety is, look to your feet and look to your road, and restrain yourselves, ‘and so redeem the time.’

There is something else to look to. Feet? Yes! Road? Yes! But also look to your guide. Tread in Christ’s footsteps, ‘follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.’ Make Him the pattern and example, and then you shall walk safely; and the path will carry you right into ‘His presence where there is fulness of joy.’ No great, noble, right, blessed life is lived without rigid self-control, self-denial, and self-crucifixion. Do not fancy that that means the absence of joy and spontaneity. ‘I will walk at liberty for I keep Thy precepts.’ Hedges are blessings when, on the other side, there are bottomless swamps of poisonous miasma, into which if a man ventures he will either drown or be plague-stricken. The narrow way that leads to life is the way of peace, just because it is a way of restrictions. Better to walk on the narrowest path that leads to the City than to be chartered libertines, wandering anywhere at our own bitter wills, and finding ‘no end, in devious mazes lost.’ Freedom consists in obeying from the heart the restriction of love; and walking punctiliously.

III. Lastly, note the motives for this course.

The Apostle says, ‘see that ye walk strictly, not as fools but as wise.’ That is to say, such limitation, which buys the opportunity and uses it for the highest purposes, is the only true wisdom. If you take the mean, miserable, partial, fleeting purposes for which some of us, alas, are squandering our lives, and contrast these with the great, perfect, all-satisfying, blessed, and eternal end for which it was given us, how can we escape being convicted of folly? One day, dear friends, it will be found out that the virgins that were not ready when the Lord came were the foolish ones. One day it will be asked of you and of me, ‘What did you do with the life which I gave you, that you might know Me?’ And if we have only the answer, ‘O Lord! I founded a big business in Manchester-I made a fortune-I wrote a clever book, that was most favourably reviewed-I brought up a family’-the only thing fit to be said to us is, ‘Thou fool!’ The only wisdom is the wisdom that secures the end for which life was given.

Then there is another motive here. ‘Redeeming the time because the days are evil.’ That is singular. ‘The days’ are ‘the time,’ and yet they are ‘evil’ days, which being translated into other words is just this-we are to make a definite effort to keep in view, and to effect, the purposes for which all the days of our lives are given us, because these days have in themselves a tendency to draw us away from the true path and to blind us as to their real meaning. The world is full of possibilities of good and evil, and the same day which, in one aspect, is the ‘season’ for serving God is, in another aspect, an ‘evil’ day which may draw us away from Him. And if we do not put out manly effort, it certainly will do so. The ocean is meant to bear the sailor to his port, but from the waves rise up fair forms, siren voices, with sweet harps and bright eyes that tempt the weary mariner to his destruction. And the days which may be occasions for our getting nearer God, if we let them work their will upon us, will be evil days which draw us away from Him.

Let me add one last motive which is not stated in my text, but is involved in the very idea of opportunity or season-viz. that the time for the high and noble purposes of which I have been speaking is rigidly limited and bounded; and once past is irrevocable. The old, wise mythological story tells us that Occasion is bald behind, and is to be grasped by the forelock. The moment that is past had in it wonderful possibilities for us. If we did not grasp them with promptitude and decision they have gone for ever. You may as well try to bring back the water that has been sucked over Niagara, and churned into white foam at its base, as to recall the wasted opportunities. They stand all along the course of our years, solemn monuments of our unfaithfulness, and none of them can ever return again. Life is full of too-lates; that sad sound that moans through the roofless ruins of the past, like the wind through some deserted temple. ‘Too late, too late; ye cannot enter now.’ ‘The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore he shall beg in harvest and have nothing.’ Oh! let us see to it that we wring out of the passing moments their highest possibilities of noblest good. Let us begin to live; for only he who lives to God really lives. Life is given to us that we may know Jesus Christ-trust Him, love Him, serve Him, be like Him. That is the pearl which, if we bring up from the sea of time, we shall not have been cast in vain into its stormy waves. Do you take care that this new year which is dawning upon us go not to join the many wasted years that lie desolate behind us, but let us all see to it that the flood which sweeps us and it away bears us straight to God, Who is our home. ‘Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 24

THE NEW WINE OF THE SPIRIT

Eph_5:15-21

Very solemnly did the moral homily to the Asian Christians begin in Eph_4:17 : "This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk." So much has now been said and testified in the intervening paragraphs, by way both of dehortation and exhortation. Here the apostle pauses; and casting his eye over the whole pathway of life he has marked out in this discourse, he bids his readers: "Look then carefully how you walk. Show that you are not fools, but wise to observe your steps and to seize your opportunities in these evil times, -days so perilous that you need your best wisdom and knowledge, of Gods will to save you from fatal stumbling."

So far St. Pauls renewed exhortation, in Eph_5:15-17, inculcates care and wary discretion, -the skill that in the strategy of life finds its vantage in unequal ground, that makes opposing winds help forward the seafarer. In this sober wisdom it is likely the Asian Christians were deficient. In many ways, both directly and indirectly, the need of increased thoughtfulness on the readers part has been indicated. But there is another side to the Christian nature: it has its moods of exhilaration, as well as of caution and reflection; ardent emotion, eager speech, and exultant song are things proper to a high religious life. For these the apostle makes room in Eph_5:18-20, while the three foregoing verses (Eph_5:15-17) enjoin the circumspection and vigilance that become the good soldier of Christ Jesus.

A striking contrast thus arises between the sobriety and the excitement that mark the life of grace. We see with what strictness we must watch ourselves, and guard the character and interests of the Church; and with what joyousness and holy freedom we may take our part in its communion. Temperament and constitution modify these injunctions in their personal application. The Holy Spirit does not enable us all to speak with equal fervour and freedom, nor to sing with the same tunefulness. His power operates in the limbs of Christs body "according to the measure of each single part." But the self-same Spirit works in both these contrasted ways, - in the sanguine and the melancholic disposition, in the demonstrative and in the reserved, in the quick play of fancy and the brightness and impulsiveness of youth no less than in the sober gait and solid sense of riper age. Let us see how the two opposite aspects of Christian experience are set out in the apostles words.

I. First of all, upon the one side, heedfulness is enjoined. The children of light must use the light to see their way. To "stumble at noonday" is a proof of folly or blindness. So misusing our light, we shall quickly lose it and return to the paths of darkness.

According to the preferable (Revised) order of the words, the qualifying adverb "carefully" belongs to the "look," not to the "walk." The circumspect look precedes the wise step. The spot is marked on which the foot is to be planted; the eye ranges right and left and takes in the bearings of the new position, forecasting its possibilities. "Look before you leap," our sage proverb says. According to the carefulness of the look, the success of the leap is likely to be.

There is no word in the epistle more apposite than this to

"our day Of haste, half-work, and disarray."

We are too restless to think, too impatient to learn. Everything is sacrificed to speed. The telegraph and the daily newspaper symbolise the age. The public ear loves to be caught quickly and with new sensations: a premium is set on carelessness and hurry. Earnest men, eager for the triumph of a good cause, push forward with unsifted statements and unweighed denunciations, that discredit Christian advocacy and wound the cause of truth and charity. Time, thus wronged and driven beyond her pace, has her revenge; she deals hardly with these light judgments of the hour. They are as the chaff which the wind carrieth away. After all, it is still truth that lives; thorough work that lasts; accuracy that hits the mark. And the time-servers are "unwise," both intellectually and morally. They are most unwise who think to succeed in lifes high calling without self-distrust, and without scrupulous care and pains in all work they do for the kingdom of God.

In the evil of his own times St. Paul sees a special reason for heedfulness: "Walk not as unwise, but as wise, buying up the opportunity, because the days are evil." In Col_4:5 the parallel sentence shows that in giving this caution he is thinking of the relation of Christians to the outside world: "Walk in wisdom toward those without, buying up the opportunity." Evil days they were, when Paul lay in Neros prison; when that wild beast was raging against everything that resisted his mad will or reproved his monstrous vices. With supreme power in the hands of such a creature of Satan, who could tell what fires of persecution were kindling for the people of Christ, or what terrible revelation of Gods anger against the present evil world might be impending. At Ephesus the spirit of heathenism had shown itself peculiarly menacing. Here, too, in the rich and cultivated province of Asia where the currents of Eastern and Western thoughts met, heresy and its corruptions made their first decided appear-ante in the Churches of the Gentiles. Conflicts are approaching which will try to the uttermost the strength of the Christian faith and the temper of its weapons. {Eph_6:10-16}

As wise men, reading thoughtfully the signs of the times, the Asian Christians will "redeem the [present] season." They will use to the utmost the light given them. They will employ every means to increase their knowledge of Christ, to confirm their faith and the habits of their spiritual life. They are like men expecting a siege, who strengthen their fortifications and furbish their weapons and practise their drill and lay up store of supplies, that they may "stand in the evil day." Such wisdom Ecclesiastes preaches to the young man: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, or ever the evil days come."

Within a year after this epistle was penned, Rome was burnt and the crime of its burning washed out, at Neros caprice, in Christian blood. In four years more St. Paul and St. Peter had died a martyrs death at Rome; and Nero had fallen by the assassins hand. At once the empire was convulsed with civil war; and the year 68-69 was known as that of the Four Emperors. Amid the storms threatening the ruin of the Roman State, the Jewish war against Rome was carried on, ending in the year 70 with the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish temple and nationality. These were the days of tribulation of which our Lord spoke, "such as had not been since the beginning of the world". {Mat_24:21-22} The entire fabric of life was shaken; and in the midst of earthquake and tempest, blood and fire, Israel met its day of judgment and the former age passed away. In the year 63, when the apostle wrote, the sky was everywhere red and lowering with signs of coming storm. None knew where or how the tempest might break, or what would be its issue.

When men amid evil days and portents of danger must be told not to be "foolish" nor "drunken with wine," one is disposed to tax them with levity. It was difficult for these Asian Greeks to take life seriously, and to realise the gravity of their situation. St. Paul appeals to them by their duty, still more than by their danger: "Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." As he bade the Thessalonians consider that chastity was not matter of choice and of their own advantage only, it was "Gods will," {1Th_4:3} so the Ephesians must understand that Christ is no mere adviser, nor the Christian life an optional system that men may adopt when and so far as it suits them. He is our Lord; and it is our business to understand, in order that we may execute, His designs. For this Christs servants require a watchful eye and an alert intelligence. They must be no dullards nor simpletons, who would enter into the Divine Masters plans; no triflers, no creatures of sentiment and impulse, who are to be the agents of His will. He can and does employ every sincere heart that gives itself in love to Him. But His nobler tasks are for the wise taught by His Spirit, for those who can "understand," with penetrating sympathy and breadth of comprehension, "what the will of the Lord is." Hence the distinction of St. Paul himself, and of John the beloved disciple, amongst His ministers and witnesses, -men great in mind as they were in heart, whose thoughts about Christ were as grand as their love to Him was fervent. Nowhere does the apostle say so much of "the will of God" in regard to the dispensation of grace as he does in this epistle. For he sees life and salvation here in their largest bearings and proportions. He prayed at the outset that the Gentile readers might realise the value that God puts upon them, and the mighty forces lie has set at work for their salvation; {Eph_1:18-20} and again, that they might comprehend the vast dimensions of His plan for the building of the Church. {Eph_3:18} Now that he has shown the relation of this eternal purpose to the character and everyday life of the converted Gentiles, "the will of God" becomes matter of immediate import; it is revealed in its bearing upon conduct, upon the affairs of business and society. It is not the purpose, the promises, the doctrine of the Lord alone, but "the will of the Lord" that they have to understand, as it touches their spirit and behaviour day by day. They must realise the practical demands of their religion, -how it is to make them fruitful, gracious, pure, and wise. They must translate creed into life and act. Such is the wisdom which their apostle strives to instil into the Asian Christians. Their first need was spiritual enlightenment; their second need was moral intelligence. Might they only have sense to understand and loyalty to obey the will of Christ.- And oh may we!

II. There were converted thieves in the Ephesian Church, who still needed to be warned against their old propensities; {Eph_4:28} there were men who had been sorcerers and fortune-tellers. {Act_19:18-19}

It appears that there were in this circle converted drunkards also, men to whom the apostle is obliged say: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is riot."

In view of the following context (Eph_5:19-21), and remembering how the Lords table was defiled by excess at Corinth, {1Co_11:17-34} it seems to us probable that the warning of Eph_5:18 had special reference to the Christian assemblies. The institution of the common meal, the Agape or Lovefeast accompanying the Lords Supper, suited the manners of the early Christians, and was long continued. The cities of Asia Minor were full of trade guilds and clubs for various social and religious purposes, in which the common supper, or club-feast, furnished usually by each member bringing his contribution to the table, was a familiar bond of fellowship. This afforded to the Church a natural and pleasant means of intercourse; but it must be purified from sensual indulgence. Wine was its chief danger.

The eastern coast of the Aegean is an ancient home of the vine. And the Greeks of the Asian towns, on those bright shores and under their genial sky, were a lighthearted, sociable race. They sought the wine-cup, not for animal indulgence, but as a zest to good-fellowship and to give a freer flow to social joys. This was the influence that ruled their feasts, that loosened their tongues and inspired their gaiety. Hence their wit was prone to become ribaldry (Eph_5:4); and their songs were the opposite of the "spiritual songs" that gladden the feasts of the Church (Eph_5:19). The quick imagination and the social instincts of the Ionian Greeks, the aptness for speech and song native to the land of Homer and Sappho, were gifts not to be repressed, but sanctified. The lyre is to be tuned to other strains; and poetry must draw its inspiration from a higher source. Dionysus and his reeling Fauns give place to the pure Spirit of Jesus and the Father. "The Aonian mount" must now pay tribute to "Sion hill"; and the fountain of Castalia yields its honours to

"Siloas brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God."

Our nature craves excitement, -some stimulus that shall set the pulse dancing and thrill the jaded frame, and lift the spirit above the task-work of life and the dreary and hard conditions which make up the daily lot of multitudes. It is this craving that gives to strong drink its cruel fascination. Alcohol is a mighty magician. The tired labouring man, the household drudge shut up in city courts refreshed by no pleasant sight or cheering voice, by its aid can leave fretted nerves and aching limbs and dull care behind, and taste, if it be only for a feverish moment, of the joy of bounding life. Can such cravings be hindered from seeking their relief? The removal of temptation will accomplish little, unless higher tastes are formed and springs of purer pleasure opened to the masses for whom our civilisation makes life so drab and colourless. "One finds traces of the primitive greatness of our nature even in its most deplorable errors. Just as impurity proceeds at the bottom from an abuse of the craving for love, so drunkenness betrays a certain demand for ardour and enthusiasm, which in itself is natural and even noble Man loves to feel himself alive; he would fain live twice his life at once; and he would rather draw excitement from horrible things than have no excitement at all" (Monod).

For the drunkards of Ephesus the apostle finds a cure in the joys of the Holy Ghost. The mightiest and most moving spring of feeling is in the spirit of man kindred to God. There is a deep excitement and refreshment, a "joy that human thought transcends," in the love of God shed abroad in the heart and the communion of true saints, which makes sensuous delights cheap and poor. Toil and care are forgotten, sickness and trouble seem as nothing; we can glory in tribulation and laugh in the face of death, when the strong wine of Gods consolation is poured into the soul.

"Be filled with the Spirit," says the apostle-or more strictly, "filled in the Spirit"; since the Holy Spirit of God is the element of the believers life, surrounding while it penetrates "his nature: it is the atmosphere that he breathes," the ocean in which he is immersed. As a flood fills up the riverbanks, as the drunkard is filled with the wine that he drains without limit, so the apostle would have his readers yield themselves to the tide of the Spirits coming and steep their nature in His influence. The Greek imperative, moreover, is present, and "describes this influence as ever going forth from the Spirit" (Beet). This is to be a continual replenishment. Paul has prayed that we may "be filled unto all the fulness of God," {Eph_3:19} and has bidden us grow "to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" {Eph_4:13} in whom we "are made full": {Col_2:9} in the replenishment of the Spirit the fulness of God in Christ is sensibly imparted. Gods fulness is the hidden and eternal spring of all that can fill our nature; Christs fulness is its revelation and renewed communication to the race; the Holy Spirits fulness is its abiding energy within the soul and within the Church. Thus possessed, the Church is truly the body of Christ, {Eph_4:4} and the habitation of God. {Eph_2:21-22}

The words of Eph_5:19-20 show that St. Paul is thinking of that presence of the Spirit in the Christian community, which is the spring of its affections and activities. The Spirit of Jesus, the Son of man, is a kindly gracious Spirit, the guardian of brotherhood and friendship, the inspirer of pure social joys and genial converse. The joy in the Holy Ghost that in its warmth and freshness filled the hearts of the first Christians, soared upward on the wings of song. Their very talk was music: they "spoke to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with their heart to the Lord." Love loves to sing. Its joys

"from out our hearts arise, And speak and sparkle in our eyes, And vibrate on our tongue."

All exalted sentiment tends to rhythmical expression. There is a mystical alliance, which is amongst the most significant facts in our constitution, between emotion and art. The rudest natures, touched by high feeling, will shape themselves to some sort of beauty, to some grace and refinement of expression. Each new stirring of the pulse of mans common life has been marked by a re-birth of poetry and art. The songs of Mary and Zechariah were the parents and patterns of a multitude of holy canticles. In the Psalms of Scripture the New Testament Church found already an instrument of wide compass strung and tuned for her use. We can imagine the delight with which the Gentile Christians would take up the Psalter and draw out one and another of its pearls, and would in turn recite them at their meetings, and adapt them to their native measures and modes of song. After a while, they began to mix with the praise-songs of Israel newer strains -"hymns" to the glory of Christ and the Father, such as that with which this epistle opens, needing but little change in form to make it a true poem, and such as those which break in upon the dread visions of the Apocalypse: and added to these, "spiritual songs" of a more personal and incidental character, like Simeons Nunc dimittis or Pauls swan-song in his last letter to Timothy. In Eph_5:14 above we detected, as we thought, an early Church paraphrase of the Old Testament. In later epistles addressed to Ephesus, there are fragments of just such artless chants as the Asian Christians, exhorted and taught by their apostle, were wont to sing in their assemblies: see 1Ti_3:16, and 2Ti_2:11-13.

Upon this congenial soil, we trace the beginnings of Christian psalmody. The parallel text of Col_3:16 discloses in the songs of the Pauline Churches a didactic as well as a lyric character. The apostle bids his readers "teach and admonish one another by psalms, hymns, spiritual songs." The form of the sentence of Eph_4:4-6 in this letter, and 1Ti_3:16, suggests that these passages were destined for use as a chanted rehearsal of Christian belief. Thus "the word of Christ dwelling richly" in the heart, poured itself freely from the lips, and added to its grave discourse the charms of gladdening and spirit-stirring song.

As in their heathen days they were used to "speak to each other," in festive or solemn hours, with hymns to Artemis of the Ephesians, or Dionysus giver of the vine, or to Persephone sad queen of the dead-in songs merry and gay, too often loose and wanton; in songs of the dark underworld and the grim Furies and inexorable Fate, that told how life fleets fast and we must pluck its pleasures while we may; -so now the Christians of Ephesus and Colossae, of Pergamum and of Smyrna would sing of the universal. Father whose presence fills earth and sky, of the Son of His love, His image amongst men, who died in sacrifice for their sins and asked grace for His murderers, of the joys of forgiveness and the cleansed heart, of life eternal and the treasure laid up for the just in the heavenly places, of Christs return in glory and the judgment of the nations and the world quickly to dissolve and perish, of a brotherhood dearer than earthly kindred, of the saints who sleep in Jesus and in peace await His coming, of the Good Shepherd who feeds His sheep and leads them to fountains of living water calling each by his name, of creation redeemed and glorified by His love, of pain and sorrow sanctified and the trials that make perfect in Christs discipline, of the joy that fills the heart in suffering for Him, and the vision of His face awaiting us beyond the grave. So reciting and chanting-now in single voice, now in full chorus -singing the Psalms of David to their Greek music, or hymns composed by their leaders, or sometimes improvised in the rapture of the moment, the Churches of Ephesus and of the Asian cities lauded and glorified "the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" and the counsels of redeeming love. So their worship and fellowship were filled with gladness. Thus in their great Church meetings, and in smaller companies, many a joyous hour passed; and all hearts were cheered and strengthened in the Lord.

"Singing and playing," says the apostle. For music aided song; voice and instrument blended in His praise whose glory claims the tribute of all creatures. But it was "with the heart," even more than with voice or tuneful strings, that melody was made. For this inward music the Lord listens. Where other skill is wanting and neither voice nor hand can take its part in the concert of praise, He hears the silent gratitude, the humble joy that wells upward when the lips are still or the full heart cannot find expression.

But the Spirit who dwelt in the praises of the new Israel was not confined to its public assemblings. The people of Christ should be "always giving thanks, for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is one of St. Pauls commonest injunctions. "In everything give thanks," he wrote to the Thessalonians in his earliest extant letter. {1Th_5:18} "For all things," he says to the Ephesians, -"though fallen on evil days." Do we not "know that to them that love God all things work together for good"-evil days as well as good days? Nothing comes altogether amiss to the child of God. In the heaviest loss, the severest pain, the sharpest sting of injury-"in everything" the ingenuity of love and the sweetness of patience will find some token of mercy. If the evil is to our eyes all evil and we can see in it no reason for thanksgiving, then faith will give thanks for that which we "know not now, but shall know hereafter."

Always, the apostle says, -for all things! No room for a moments discontent. In this perfecting of praise he had himself undergone a long schooling in his four years imprisonment. Now, he tells us, he "has learnt the secret of contentment, in whatsoever state". {Php_4:12} Let us try to learn it from him. These words, which we treat, almost unconsciously, as the exaggeration of homiletical appeal, state no more than the sober possibility, the experience attained by many a Christian in circumstances of the greatest suffering and deprivation. The love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord suffices for the life and joy of mans spirit.

The twenty-first verse, which seems to belong to a different line of thought, in reality completes the foregoing paragraph. In the Corinthian Church, as we remember, with its affluence of spiritual gifts, there were so many ready to prophesy, so many to sing and recite, that confusion arose and the Church meetings fell into disedifying uproar. {1Co_14:26-34} The apostle would not have such scenes occur again. Hence when he urges the Asian Christians to seek the full inspiration of the Spirit and to give free utterance in song to the impulses of their new life, he adds this word of caution: "being subject to one another in fear of Christ." He reminds them that "God is not the author of confusion." His Spirit is a Spirit of seemliness and reverence. "In fear of Christ," the unseen witness and president of its assemblies, the Church will comport herself with the decorum that befits His bride. The spirits of the prophets will be subject to the prophets. The voices of the singers and the hands of them that play upon the strings of the harp or the keys of the organ, will keep tune with the worship of Christs congregation. Each must consider that it is his part to serve and not rule in the service of Gods house. In our common work and worship, in all the offices of life this is the Christian law. No man within Christs Church, however commanding his powers, may set himself above the duty of submitting his judgment and will to that of his fellows. In mutual subjection lies our freedom, with our strength and peace.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

5:15 Fools have no understanding of God and his ways, but those who are wise do know God and understand his ways (see Job 28:28; Prov 1:7; 2:1-22).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eph 5:15. Βλέπετε, see) This word is repeated, Eph 5:17.—πῶς, how) True solicitude looks even to the manner. As [wise] corresponds to it.—ἀκριβῶς) circumspectly [Man soll es genau (precise, accurate, fitting exactly) nehmen.—V. g.] Comp. Act 26:5.—μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι, not as fools) who walk irregularly.[84]

[84] Præter propter viam, thereabouts, about, i.e. in and out of the way, uncertainly.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_5:15. Οὖν] is, after the digression begun with μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἐλέγχετε of Eph_5:11, resumptive, as at Eph_4:17. Look then to itnow to return to my exhortations with regard to the Christian walk, Eph_5:8-10how ye, etc. Calvin, whom Harless follows, states the connection thus: Si aliorum discutere tenebras fideles debent fulgure suo, quanto minus caecutire debent in proprio vitae instituto. This would be correct, if Paul had written βλέπετε οὖν αὐτοί, or βλέπετε οὖν, πῶς αὐτοί.

βλέπετε] is the simple: look to, take heed to (1Co_16:10; Php_3:2; Col_4:17), not: utimini luce vestra ad videndum, Estius (comp. Erasmus), which is forbidden by πῶς.

πῶς ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖτε] πῶς not equivalent to ἵνα (Koppe), and περιπατεῖτε not for the subjunctive (Grotius), but: look to it, in what manner ye carry out the observance of an exact walk in strict accord with duty (comp. ἀκριβοδίκαιος, Arist. Eth. Nic. v. 10. 8). Comp. C. F. A. Fritzsche, in Fritzschior. Opusc. p. 208 f.; Winer, p. 269 [E. T. 376].

μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι, κ.τ.λ.] Epexegesis of the ἀκριβῶς just mentioned, negative and positive: presenting yourselves in your walk not as unwise, but as wise. We have thus to supply neither περιπατοῦντες (Harless) nor anything else; but, like ἀκριβῶς, its more precise definition μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι κ.τ.λ. is dependent on περιπατεῖτε. With regard to μή, referring to βλέπετε, see Winer, p. 421 [E. T. 595]; and for the emphatic parallelismus antithcticus, comp. Nägelsbach, Anm. z. Ilias, ed. 3, p. 80 f.; Bremi, ad Dem. de Chers. p. 108, 73; Winer, p. 537 f. [E. T. 762].

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph 5:15-21 . A paragraph closely connected with the former, and specifying various things belonging to the correctness and consistency of the Christian walk.

Eph 5:15 . βλέπετε οὖν πῶς ἀκριβῶς [ ἀκριβῶς πως ] περιπατεῖτε : take heed then how ye walk with strictness [or, take heed carefully how ye walk ]. The writer passes from the statement of the need of the ἔλεγξις and its profitable effects into which he had been led for a space, and returns to the exhortation of Eph 5:8 . The οὖν has its resumptive force here; as indeed it is a particle not so much of inference as of “continuation and retrospection” (Donald.), and is better rendered “then,” “accordingly,” “to proceed,” than “therefore” (see Win.-Moult., p. 553; Ell. on Gal 3:5 ; and especially Donaldson, Greek Gram. , p. 571). It is out of place to give βλέπετε any such sense as “make use of the light so as to see,” as if it had regard to the φῶς previously mentioned. It has the simple force of “take heed,” as in Mat 13:23 ; Mat 13:33 ; 1Co 10:7 ; Phi 3:2 ; Col 4:17 . It is followed by πῶς again in Luk 8:18 ; 1Co 3:10 . The particular shade of meaning attributable to ἀκριβῶς here turns in some degree on the reading. The TR gives πῶς ἀκριβῶς , following [558] 5 [559] [560] [561] [562] [563] [564] and most MSS., with the Vulg., Syr., Arm. Versions, and such Fathers as Theodor., Jerome, etc. If this order is adopted ἀκριβῶς , which = “exactly,” “diligently” (Mat 2:8 ; Luk 1:3 ; Act 18:25 ; 1Th 5:2 ), will express the idea of strict conformity to a standard, carefulness against any departure from what is proper to a Christian walk. So the AV and other old English Versions render it “circumspectly” or (Wicl., Rhem.) “warily” a very good translation. In [565] [566] [567] 17, Origen, etc., the order is ἀκριβῶς πῶς , and this is adopted by TTr marg. WRV. In that case the injunction loses its distinctive note, and instead of the charge to take heed how they walked “with strict carefulness,” we have the plain exhortation to “take heed carefully” how they walked. The πῶς in either case should have its proper sense “how” (as in Cran., Cov., Rhem. and similarly Wicl.), not “that” (as in AV and the rest of the old English Versions). Further, the περιπατεῖτε is not an indic. with a conjunctive force, as if = “take heed how ye should walk,” but a proper indic.; the point being the need of looking carefully at the way in which the Christian walk was being carried out there and then. See Win.-Moult., p. 376, and cf. ἔκαστος βλεπέτω πῶς οἰκοδομετῖ in 1Co 3:10 . μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι , ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί : not as unwise, but as wise . Some think that some such term as περιπατοῦντες must be supplied here. But it is unnecessary, the μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι being dependent on the πῶς περιπατεῖτε and explanatory of it, = “how ye walk, to wit , not as unwise, but as wise”. The subjective negative μή is in point because the whole sentence is also dependent on the βλέπετε . The nature of the walk to be consistently pursued is placed in the stronger light by the antithetic parallelism; a form especially characteristic of the Johannine writings; cf. Win.-Moult., p. 762. They were to walk as those who had the character ( ὡς ) not of fools, but of wise men.

[558] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[559] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[560] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[561] Codex Boernerianus (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Dresden, edited by Matthæi in 1791. Written by an Irish scribe, it once formed part of the same volume as Codex Sangallensis ( δ ) of the Gospels. The Latin text, g, is based on the O.L. translation.

[562] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[563] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[564] Codex Porphyrianus (sæc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Eph 2:13-16 .

[565] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[566] Autograph of the original scribe of א .

[567] Autograph of the original scribe of א .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eph_5:15

If this verse be considered as connected inferentially by οὖν with the preceding, then the association of ideas is: If believers are bound to dispel the darkness from the hearts and lives of others, how careful should they be not to be dark themselves, i.e. they should walk as wise men. This however seems forced. The exhortation contained in this and the following verse is most naturally connected with that contained in Eph_5:10 and Eph_5:11. Believers as children of light are required to have no fellowship with the works of darkness, but rather to reprove them; see therefore, i.e. take heed therefore, πῶς ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖτε, that ye walk circumspectly. Πῶς, however, does not mean that, though often used where ὅτι or ἵνα might be employed. It here as elsewhere means how, in what manner. See in what manner ye render your deportment accurate. Ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖτε is to walk strictly by rule, so as not to deviate by a hairs breadth. Not as unwise, but as wise. Paul often uses the word σοφία for divine truth. The σοφοί are those who possess this truth, which he had before called light, and the ἄσοφοι are those who have it not. So that wise and unwise are here equivalent to the enlightened and those in darkness. His exhortation, therefore, is that believers should carefully deport themselves not as the heathen and unrenewed, who have not the divine light of which he had been speaking, but as those who are enlightened from above and are therefore wise.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The worse and more corrupt that the manners of this world are, the more watchful ought we to be against all occasions, and respect nothing but the will of God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

that--rather as Greek, "See how ye walk," &c. The double idea is compressed into one sentence: "See (take heed) how ye walk," and "See that ye walk circumspectly." The manner, as well as the act itself, is included. See how ye are walking, with a view to your being circumspect (literally, accurate, exact) in your walk. Compare Col 4:5, "Walk in wisdom (answering to 'as wise' here) toward them that are without" (answering to "circumspectly," that is, correctly, in relation to the unbelievers around, not giving occasion of stumbling to any, but edifying all by a consistent walk).

not as fools--Greek, "not as unwise, but as wise."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 15. Walk circumspectly] Our word circumspect, from the Latin circirmspicio, signifies to look round about on all hands; to be every way watchful, wary, and cautious, in order to avoid danger, discern enemies before they come too nigh, and secure a man's interest by every possible and lawful means. But the original word ακριβως signifies correctly, accurately, consistently, or perfectly. Be ye, who have received the truth, careful of your conduct; walk by the rule which God has given you; do this as well in little as in great matters; exemplify your principles, which are holy and good, by a corresponding conduct; do not only profess, but live the Gospel. As you embrace all its promises, be careful also to embrace all its precepts; and behave yourselves so, that your enemies may never be able to say that ye are holy in your doctrines and profession, but irregular in your lives.

Not as fools, but as wise] Μη ὡς ασοφοι, αλλ' ὡς σοφοι. The heathens affected to be called σοφοι, or wise men. Pythagoras was perhaps the first who corrected this vanity, by assuming the title of φιλοσοφος, a lover of wisdom; hence our term philosopher, used now in a much prouder sense than that in which the great Pythagoras wished it to be applied. The apostle here takes the term σοφος, and applies it to the Christian; and, instead of it, gives the empty Gentile philosopher the title of ασοφος, without wisdom, fool.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. See then. If believers must not neglect to drive away the darkness of others by their own brightness, how much less ought they to be blind as to their own conduct in life? What darkness shall conceal those on whom Christ, the Sun of righteousness, has arisen? Placed, as it were, in a crowded theater, they ought to live under the eye of God and of angels. Let them stand in awe of these witnesses, though they may be concealed from the view of all mortals. Dismissing the metaphor of darkness and light, he enjoins them to regulate their life circumspectly as wise men, who have been educated by the Lord in the school of true wisdom. Our understanding must shew itself by taking God for our guide and instructor, to teach us his own will.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(15) See then that ye walk (properly, how ye walk) circumspectly.—The word rendered “circumspectly” is properly strictly, or accurately—generally used of intellectual accuracy or thoroughness (as in Mat_2:8; Luk_1:3; Act_18:25; Act_18:28; 1Th_5:2); only here and in Act_26:5 (“the straitest sect of our religion”) of moral strictness. The idea, therefore, is not of looking round watchfully against dangers, but of “seeing,” that is, being careful, “how we walk strictly;” of finding out the clear line of right, and then keeping to it strictly, so as not “to run uncertainly.” In the corresponding passage in the Colossian Epistle (Col_4:5) a similar admonition has especial reference “to those without,” and bids us have a resolute unity of aim, a distinct religious profession, amidst all the bewildering temptations of the world. Here it is more general; it bids men not to trust wholly to general rightness of heart, in which “the spirit is willing,” but to be watchful over themselves, and to be a law to themselves, “because the flesh is weak.”

Not as fools, but as wise.—This still further explains the “strictness,” for “wisdom” is the practical knowledge of the true end and purpose of life. (See above, Eph_1:8.) He who has it not, whatever his intellectual and spiritual gifts, is “unwise.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15–21. The subject pursued: the talent of time: temperance: spiritual songs: thanksgiving: humility

15. See then] The more general exhortation to a holy life-walk is resumed here, after the special entreaties thus given to avoid, yet influence, surrounding darkness.

walk] The seventh and last occurrence in the Epistle of this important metaphor.

circumspectly] Lit., accurately, remembering the importance of details of both duty and danger, and the presence of the will of God in everything.

The R.V. adopts here a Gr. text which requires the rendering, “Look therefore carefully how ye walk.” But the documentary evidence scarcely warrants this change. And it has the objection of making the order of words in the Gr. more easy, and so more likely to be a transcriber’s correction.

Observe how the illuminated Christian is to keep his eyes open. No guidance is promised him which shall dispense with patient watchfulness.

fools] Lit., and better, unwise; spiritually unwise, blind to spiritual facts and consequences.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore be ye not unwise,.... No one would be thought to be unwise, but such are, who do not redeem time, and are ignorant of the will of the Lord; believers should not act the unwise part, neither in their talk, nor in their walk and conversation, nor in their use of time:

but understanding what the will of the Lord is; or "of God", as read the Alexandrian copy, the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions: there is the secret will of God, which is the rule of all his proceedings; and is unknown to men, till facts make it appear; this is always fulfilled, and sometimes by persons who have no regard to his revealed will; to this the wills of the people of God should be always resigned: and there is his revealed will, which lies partly in the Gospel; which declares it to be his will, that Christ should work out the salvation of his people, which is what he came to do; that whoever believes in him shall be saved; that all that are redeemed shall be sanctified; and that they shall persevere to the end, and be glorified; and partly in the law, in the precepts and commands of it, which contain the good, perfect, and acceptable will of God: and the understanding of it is not a mere speculative knowledge of it, but a practical one; when a man not only knows, but does the will of God, and his heart and actions agree with it; and this is to be done in faith, in virtue of grace and strength received, with a view to the glory of God, having no dependence on what is done; and to the right understanding of it, so as to act according to it, as should be, the word of God, and the illuminations, instructions, and grace of the Spirit, are necessary: the Alexandrian copy, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, read the words as an exhortation, "understand ye the will of God".

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Ver. 15. See then that ye walk circumspectly] Precisely, exactly, accurately, by line and by rule, and as it were in a frame, striving to get up to the top of godliness, as the word importeth; to keep God’s commandments to the utmost, to go to the extremity of it, ακριβως εις ακρον Βαινειν. Hereunto if we stand straightly, one may say safely, Lord, if I be deceived, thou and thy word have deceived me.

Not as fools] Christians must excel others, standing as standard bearers.

But as wise] Great need we have to fly to Christ, who dwells with prudence, Pro 8:1-36, to stand upon our watch. (Σοφος ab Heb. Tsopheh. Speculator.) And when we walk, to tread gingerly, step warily; since as those funambulones, rope walkers (it is Tertullian’s comparison), if we tread but one step awry, we are utterly gone.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See then that ye walk circumspectly - carefully, anxiously, solicitous lest you fall into sin. The word rendered “circumspectly” - ἀκριβῶς akribōs - means “diligently,” and the idea here is, that they were to take special pains to guard against the temptations around them, and to live as they ought to.

Not as fools, but as wise - Not as the people of this world live, indulging in foolish pleasures and desires, but as those who have been taught to understand heavenly wisdom, and who have been made truly wise.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

See then that ye walk circumspectly; being called to reprove the evil conversation of others, see that ye walk exactly and accurately yourselves, avoiding extremes and keeping close to the rule. See the same word rendered diligently, Mat 2:8, and perfectly, 1Th 5:2.

Not as fools; who are destitute of spiritual wisdom, and through carelessness fall into sin or error, though in the light of the gospel.

But as wise; those that are taught of God, and are endued with wisdom from above.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. See—St. Paul now closes the paragraph, as he did the last, with a deduced admonition.

Then—Therefore; that is, in view of your office as light to reprove the darkness, held forth in the whole of this closing paragraph. To two things were they to see: First, that they were themselves unreprovable; and, second, that they should be ready in the reproof of prevalent sin.

Circumspectly—With strictness of rectitude, knowing that critical eyes are upon you.

Fools—The children of disobedience, (Eph_5:6,) the foolish talkers, (Eph_5:4.)

Wise—Too thoughtful to be deceived, (Eph_5:6,) ever solemnly holding in view the future divine wrath upon licentiousness.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Take heed then how ye walk strictly. The construction is somewhat peculiar, combining two ideas see that you walk strictly, but consider well the kind of strictness. Do not walk loosely, without fixed principles of action; but make sure that your rules are of the true kind. Many are strict who are not wisely strict; they have rules, but not good rules. Not as unwise, but as wise. This rendering brings out the force of asofoi and sofui: "fools" (A.V) is rather strong, for it is not utter folly that is reproved, but easy-mindedness, want of earnest consideration in a matter so infinitely vital, so as to know what is truly best.

Vers. 15-21.

Walk circumspectly, or strictly.

The apostle goes on to urge a circumspect, wise, and earnest life, closely conformed in all things to the will of God, fashioned according to that idea of wisdom which is set forth in the proverb, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Nothing is of more value than fixed principles for guiding our life. One settled conviction may be of inestimable value; e.g. the conviction that nothing can come to any good in the end which is against the will of God. Whenever greatness is achieved in any sphere of life it is through the force of well-kept rules. Every great author, artist, statesman, has owed his success to certain principles of action to which he has rigidly adhered. It has been remarked that the puritan age was an age of convictions; ours is an age of opinions. But what we need is convictions, and pre-eminently the conviction that the only true, safe, and blessed rule of life is to follow implicitly the will of God. We find here rules for a careful Christian life,

(1) apart,

(2) in Christian society.

I APART.

1. Walk circumspectly, or strictly, not carelessly.

2. Walk wisely, taking pains to ascertain that you so walk as to gain the great end.

3. Redeem the time, or buy back the opportunity (see Exposition).

4. Understand; i.e. lay to heart and follow the will of Christ.

5. Avoid intoxication and all wild excitement and unhallowed pleasure.

6. Be filled with the Spirit, and the holy, blessed emotions which he genders.

II IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.

1. Cultivate Christian song, and make melody in your heart to the Lord.

2. Let thanksgiving have a special place in your exercises.

3. Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord.

As Christians have not only duties, but also joys, belonging to their individual life, so they have both duties and joys belonging to their social life. What is most characteristic of the social duties of Christians is mutual submission; consideration of one another of what is due by one to another, and still more of the loving service which one may be able to render to the other. What is most characteristic of their social joys is the element of thankfulness in which they flourish; they should ever live as those, who in Christ have received mercies beyond all calculation; and they should make abundant use of song to give expression to such feelings and to deepen them in so doing. This joyous element goes a long way to give brightness to the social life of Christians; they will not miss the more carnal delights on which worldly men set so much store, but will feel that God puts joy in their hearts, more than in the time that their corn and wine increased.

Vers. 15, 16.

The circumspect walk.

I ITS NECESSITY. The duty of reproof involved the necessity of circumspection in those who were bound to administer it. It may be a small thing to Christians "to be judged of man"s judgment", (1Co_4:3) yet they cannot afford to disregard the force of public opinion. They ought to "have a good report of them which are without". (1Ti_3:7) It is evidently with reference to onlookers that the counsel of the apostle is given. "Walk m wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time". (Col_4:5) When we consider the number of our enemies, the inconstancy of our minds, the strictness of the Divine requirements, and the jealousy our Divine Master cherishes over his people, it is impossible to walk acceptably unless we walk circumspectly.

II THE NATURE OF THIS WALK. We are to "walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.

1. We are to have knowledge of the true way (Jer_6:16; Mat_7:14) not as the fool, who misses the path.

2. We are to follow the light that falls upon our path, not like the fool, who turns aside to darkness, only to stumble in it. (Pro_4:27)

3. We are to foresee the dangers of the way and provide against them, not like "the simple, who pass on and are punished". (Pro_22:3)

4. We are to have the Lord for our Companion by the way, like "Enoch, who walked with God". (Gen_5:22) The fool seeks the company of the foolish.

5. We are to keep in view the end of our walk. "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls". (1Pe_1:9)

III THE APPLICATION OF THIS PRINCIPLE TO THE PROFITABLE USE OF OPPORTUNITY. "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." There can be no wise or careful walking without a due consideration both of the value of time and of the importance of using our opportunities for doing good.

1. The nature of this redemption of time. It is not the mere effort to rescue the fleeting hours of our life from idleness, vanity, distraction, or excessive devotion to business, but an effort to lay hold of opportunities for doing good, to make the most of them, to allow no distractions of pleasure or life to stand in the way of their right employment. Jesus, in his extreme youth, was eager to be "about his Father"s business". (Luk_2:49) We are to do good unto all men "as we have opportunity". (Gal_6:10) We are to do good to our very enemies, after the example of that Father who maketh his sun to rise upon the evil and the good". (Mat_5:45) We are to use our opportunities also for receiving good, giving all diligence to make our calling and our election sure. (2Pe_1:10)

1. Reasons for redeeming the time. "Because the days are evil." It is not because our days are few, though that is also a very good reason.

1. We have lost much time already; (1Pe_4:3)

2. we do not know how much time yet remains to us ( (Jam_4:14);

3. we have to give an account of all our time and opportunities.

The reason assigned by the apostle is the evil of the days. Time must not be lost if the evil is to be quickly and effectively counteracted. The apostle does not hint the nature of the evil. Yet it is allowable to suppose that the days were evil, not in themselves, but by reason of man"s wickedness and folly.

(1) It is the evil of sin, rather than the evil of punishment, that is meant.

(2) It is part of the evil that men do not see it at all.

(3) It is part of the evil that they do not mourn over it.

(4) It is part of the evil that they will do nothing to remove it.

There is, therefore, all the more reason for Christians bestirring themselves in all seasons and spheres of action to counteract the evil of the days. T.C.

Vers. 15-21.

Exhortation to exercise wisdom in regard to our manner of walk.

therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise." The object to which we are to look is this how we walk; in other words, the conduct of our life. In regard to this we are to be careful. At cross-roads there are sometimes finger-posts put up to indicate where the different roads lead to, that travelers may be at no loss. By looking carefully at these, they may save themselves much trouble and delay. So it becomes every traveler to eternity to know the road that he is taking, whether it is the narrow or the broad. There are finger-posts put up by God (in the Word) by which we may ascertain this and put ourselves right if we have to our grief taken the wrong road. But, seeing many do not make use of these finger-posts (do not look at them at all, or only carelessly, and thus exhibit great folly), the exhortation takes the negative as well as the positive form. "Not as unwise, but as wise." The word translated "carefully" may also be translated "precisely," and suggests this, that we are not only to look to the general correctness of our conduct, but to look to it down to the smallest details. It is only by thus going carefully over it in detail, with no foregone conclusion in our mind, but earnestly seeking God to search us and to discover to us what can be altered for the better, that we may be able to bring it out into some beauty of conception as a whole. There are two things in regard to which we are to exercise wisdom.

I TIME. "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." The right management of our time is what we are particularly to look to. The exhortation is to redeem the time, that is, the time meted out to us on earth, in which to fulfill the Divine purposes. Literally, as given in the margin, we are to buy up the opportunity. The idea is that every moment has its own duty assigned to it. By doing the duty in the moment, we make a purchase of the opportunity, we turn it into a gain. We keep abreast of time; we avoid subsequent collision of duties. Whereas by not doing the duty in the moment, we contract debt, we fall behind. Instead of being the free owners of our time, we become slavish debtors to it. We are to be like merchants that seize every vantage that is going. Merchants, that travel about from place to place, do not get a vantage at every turn. They must lay their account by an amount of fruitless toil. But as heavenly merchants, we are in this enviable position, that every moment comes laden with golden opportunity. And we are to make our moments as they pass rich in all the gains of a good life.

1. Good planning. If we would redeem the time in its days, then we must anticipate them by wise economical arrangements. We must see them coming, and know how (God willing) we are to fill them up. The light that we have got from past days we are to put into some workable scheme for the days to come. To the excellence of a day-plan it is essential that we rightly proportion between the various duties of life (so that none are left out or do not get their proper place). We are to keep up the right proportion between our severer and our lighter engagements. It behooves every one to have a task, a definite task, a task that taxes his energies. And if he does not have it by necessity of procuring his daily bread, yet should he have it by necessity of steadying himself. But it is not good for the bow to be always bent, and, if we manage well, we shall find time (and find it good for the doing of our task too) to relax ourselves in social enjoyment.

We are also to keep up the right proportion between our religious and our secular duties. The latter, as a general arrangement, must take up a large proportion of our time. Six to one is the proportion indicated in the command. But in every well-planned life there will be found ample time for religious duties. Every day is to begin with an acknowledgment of God. It may seem utopian to expect morning devotions of one who has to be at his work at six o"clock. And yet it only requires a little taken off sleep or off the previous evening to secure the necessary time for God. And surely that is not too much to expect of any Christian in the interest of a well-ordered life. Morning devotions alone will not make the day good. Only when these have been conscientiously engaged in there will be felt to be an obligation to make the day"s work harmonize with them. The evening may be utilized for self-improvement and ministries to others. And the day is to end, as it began, with God. It is only by such planning (in the name of him who is not the author of confusion), that we can expect to be like merchants accumulating a large fortune.

2. Good planning followed up by decisiveness in execution. There is a reason given for redeeming the time: Because the days are evil." The very earth has taken a complexion from the degeneracy of the dwellers on it. And so our days are evil, and not such as they would have been under normal conditions.

(1) The days are evil because many of them are lost already. We have known the degeneracy of the days in our own experience. We have lost many a good opportunity. This thought should act as a powerful stimulus to us. The apostle gives revenge as the last and crowning fruit of a godly sorrow. "Yea, what revenge!" he says. We are to take revenge upon ourselves that we have given so much of our valuable strength and time to our adversary. The workman knows what it is to make up lost time. When he falls behind with his tale of work, he has to work longer hours or to apply himself with double energy when he is at it. So, because our days have been ill spent in the past (before conversion and after conversion too) are we to work with redoubled energy in the future.

(2) The days are evil because of the many temptations they bring. In our calm moments (sorrowful for the past) we think of spending our time in a certain way that seems good to us. But circumstances are not altogether with us. In a world where evil has obtained such a hold we must lay our account to our being solicited from without more or less urgently to depart from our plan. And what makes the solicitation much to be feared is that we are enfeebled from our past. If we had conquered obstacles as we went along, we should have been in a freer, stronger position today. But we have to drag our antecedents with us, like an old debt. We have undigested time, lying like a burden on our present energies. And though, with repentance and forgiveness, there is a sense of freedom and hope imparted to us, yet there is that which is to be conquered in evil habit. The only way of conquest is to deal rigorously with all interruptions of duty, as they arise, as those who would see the time redeemed, and not its losses added to.

(3) The days are evil because they are few. We have time to make up (in the face of great temptations), and little time to make it up in. Had we a thousand years to live, the case would be altered. That would be a comparatively long period in which to make up what we had lost in thirty or fifty or seventy years. But when the days are evil in this sense, that we cannot calculate on a single day as ours, there is surely urgent reason for making up our losses without delay. Were all the interests of life crowded into one moment, were we told that upon the use we made of that moment depended our future happiness or misery, how urgently should we be called upon to use it aright! What is actually the arrangement differs little from that. We really live on from moment to moment, not knowing which is to be our last. How wise, then, to seek to make out of every passing moment eternal gain! Inference in which there is a recurrence to the general exhortation and a transition to the second particular. "Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." The teaching here is that Christ is Lord of our time. He has the sovereign appointment of the time of our coming here and the time of our going hence. All our undertakings are conditioned by this: "If the Lord will." He has sovereign rights over our time. To him we owe the firstfruits of our time, as we owe the firstfruits of our substance. From Christ we get the whole plan of our life. The right management of our time, then, is to understand what the will of the Lord is, what Christ would have us to do. Seeking Christ"s mind as to the employment of our time, we may expect that we shall obtain from him the strength necessary to conquer all the obstacles of our time, and to do the work of each day in its day, according as the duty of the day requires.

II WINE.

1. Dissuasive from false excitement. "And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot." It is evident from the language which is here employed that the wine drunk in those times was intoxicating. The apostolic advice must be regarded as even more applicable to drinks of stronger intoxicating qualities, which are manufactured now. It has its application to the intoxicating cup of the world in every form to the intoxication of novel-reading, to the intoxication of keenness in business, to the intoxication of political excitement. This advice is not inaptly connected with the previous advice as to the right management of time. For it is when time is not properly filled up, when it is insipid, monotonous, or when it is filled up with wrong-doing, that there is the temptation to go after some form or other of earthly excitement. It cannot be said that the use of wine at all is forbidden by this precept. But there is certainly sounded in connection with it the note of alarm. There is put up beside it the red flag of danger. "Be not drunken with wine." Drunkenness is the feverish desire, the morbid craving, for drink. The man with his noble powers becomes one huge, ever-seeking, never-satisfied appetite. It is a vice into which all classes are in danger of falling. If the idle take to drinking to relieve the tedium of existence, the overwrought take to it to make up exhausted strength. The young take to it from a love of excitement, and the aged and debilitated take to it to get new tone to their system. Men of a coarse nature take to it because they are incapable of higher pleasures, and men of fine sensibility take to it because it is a source of inspiration to the intellect. Men of social tendencies take to it because it helps good fellowship; and the saddest thing is that women take to it in private, because of a peculiarly sensitive frame and inequalities of feeling. It is a vice, then, which must be said to be of a peculiarly fascinating, dangerous nature. And let no one think that he is out of danger. Many of those who have fallen were not like failing at first. They did not take drink at all for a time, and their friends had hope in them that they would prove temperate men. And when (with other social surroundings in some cases) they began to make any use of it, they seemed to be taking it in a perfectly innocent or needful way, until the liking was formed, and they could not do without a certain and an increasing amount of drink. Now, let it be observed on what ground the apostle condemns drunkenness. It is in the line of his thought that we are to exercise wisdom as to our manner of walk. Wherein, he says, is riot. Drunkenness is a madness. There is a form of it to which this description is specially applicable, that which is known as delirium tremens. But even in its ordinary working it has a close resemblance to madness. It takes away from men the guiding power of reason, their self-possession, their self-restraint, and leads them to make such exhibitions of themselves as in their calm moments they would be ashamed of. "Riot," which is the word employed in the Revised translation, is defined by Johnson to be "wild and loose festivity.

When his headstrong riot hath no curb, When rage and hot blood are his counselors, When means and lavish manners meet together.

(1) The word riot" points to the prodigal manner of the drunkard. The drunkard is prodigal of his means.

So senseless of expense That he will know neither how to maintain it Nor cease his flow of riot.

He spends on self-indulgence what, if saved, would not only increase the comfort of his home, but would do much good besides. The drunkard is prodigal of his time, and thus violates the previous precept. The golden opportunity, which he might employ for informing his mind or instructing his children, he wastes in the public-house. The drunkard is prodigal of the stuff of which his frame is made. He wastes his physical powers, takes away his clearness of head, his steadiness of hand, and his general vigor, induces disease and premature death (again violating the previous precept in throwing away years that in the paths of temperance would have been his). The drunkard is prodigal of his worth to his fellows, as the temperate man is preservative in this respect. When the Indian general saw disaster waiting on his country"s arms, because, alas! in an emergency his regiments were found besotted with drink, "Call out Havelock"s saints!" he exclaimed; they are never drunk, and Havelock is always ready." The drunkard is prodigal of his better feelings. He deadens his home feelings. He does not value the society of his wife and children; he does not study their happiness; nay, he can see them want in order that he may be gratified. He deadens his spiritual sensibilities. And to his wife the most dreadful thought may be, not that she is set aside or the children neglected, but that for his idol he is casting off his God.

(2) The word "riot" points to the noisy manner of the drunkard. Men under excitement are naturally demonstrative, and the drunkard is peculiarly noisy (and in that senseless) in his demonstrations. There is the noise of drunken laughter. "As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so "empty and short-lived" is the laughter of the fool." There is the noise of drunken songs. There is the song (of its own kind), which goes along with the drinking of. (Isa_24:8) In the convivial song men tell each other vociferously of their freedom from care, of their good-heartedness (though there may be the specters of poverty, of broken hearts, in their homes); or they may go to the lower depth of the indelicate and the profane. But how all such hilarity is out of place! "I will turn," it is said in the Prophet Amos, "your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation." And there is the echo of this in James: "Be afflicted and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness." There is the noise of drunken brawls. There is often, under the excitement of strong drink, a combativeness in words and a combativeness in acts. "Who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? They that tarry long at the wine." It cannot be said that the apostle gives a decision in favor of total abstinence. He nowhere counsels total abstinence as a duty in itself or in relation to his times. At the same time, he gives no decision adverse to total abstinence. And we know that elsewhere he lays down a principle of expediency which, under certain conditions, makes total abstinence a Christian duty. Many good people think that these conditions exist in our country at the present time. They feel that the evil of intemperance has risen to such a height as to be a national vice (threatening our very position as a nation), and they wish to stand as clear of it as they can. They feel that there are endangered persons in their home, or circle of their acquaintances, or Christian congregation with which they are connected; and they wish to guard them as well as they can. They feel that they are in danger themselves, and they wish to be on their guard. And those who for such reasons as these can sacrifice their gratification are deserving of all honor. Let us see that (in the discouragement of drinking) our influence is duly on the side of temperance, that we are doing nothing to hinder others in their struggle (often painful) towards virtue and happiness.

2. Persuasive to true excitement. "But be filled with the Spirit." The apostle does not forbid all excitement; rather for the excitement which he negatives as false would he substitute a true excitement.

(1) We can be drunken with wine; we are to be filled (never can be drunken) with the Spirit. There is warning connected with the use of wine, but there is no warning connected with the reception of the exhilarating influences of the Spirit. Our appetite is encouraged here: Be filled with the Spirit." We can never be too much abandoned to spiritual appetite; it can never grow in us to dangerous strength. In our carnality we know too little of what it is to be joyfully excited in our highest nature. Cowper tells us how he must have died with joy it special strength had not been given him to bear the Divine disclosures. And Jonathan Edwards tells how he felt as though rapt and swallowed up in God. Doubtless such a state (so far ordinary) was the foundation for the supernatural communications which John received in Patmos. Let it not be thought that this is too high. There must be something of this pure excitement experienced in us, if we would be cured of love for false excitement. We do not despise other cures; but this is the best cure for drunkenness, this is the all-effectual positive which we are to put in its place.

(2) The manifestations of excitement from wine are unseemly; the manifestations of excitement from the Spirit are pure and lovely.

(a) Singing. It is known how to take advantage of harmonious sound in encouraging men to go into battle in "the shrill trump, the spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife." It is also known how to use it as an auxiliary in the service of superstition, revelry, and vice. And God, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to make use of the same instrumentality. In the old Jewish temple four thousand Levites, an entire fourth division of them, were employed in connection with the service of praise. God has inspired and enabled men to write psalms and hymns for the sanctuary; and he has also enabled men to compose suitable music for them. The singing of musical words, with or without an instrumental accompaniment, has a wonderful power in stirring emotion, in waking sweet and glad memories, and even in exciting the imagination in a certain vagueness and immensity which belongs to the sounds. As in a sea-shell pressed to the ear we are said to hear the sound of the ocean from which it has come, So in the sweet strains of music may we hear a sounding as from the eternal shores.

Thou, Lord, art the Father of music: Sweet sounds are a whisper from thee.

In an elevated mood (as here supposed) we naturally give expression to our feelings in song. "Is any cheerful? let him sing praise.

(a) Singing together. Speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Men, under the excitement of the Spirit, delight to sing spiritual songs (as distinguished from the songs of the drunkard). Under this come the psalms in their grand historic position. And there also come hymns, that is, songs other than the psalms, which are used in praise. We are to speak one to another by means of these. Pliny records of the early Christians that they were wont on a fixed day to meet before daylight (to avoid persecution), and to recite a hymn among themselves by turns to Christ as to God. Luther greatly advanced the cause of the Reformation by his hymns, which were sung at the firesides of the people. How we can thus breathe the spirit of confidence, of courage, of hope, into one another! Having encouraged ourselves in the Rock of our strength, we turn and thus speak to our fellow-worshippers, one to the rest, or one section to another

Ye people, place your confidence In him continually; Before him pour ye out your heart: God is our Refuge high.

(b) Singing with the heart. "Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." Singing together can only occupy a small proportion of our time. But in our other engagements we may be so full of trust, so free from care, that we sing with the heart. And the song that we sing all day is set to the Name of Christ, to the work of redemption.

There are in this low stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of the everlasting chime; Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat?

(b) Thanksgiving. "Giving thanks always for all things, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father." This is another beautiful manifestation of spiritual excitement. In our higher moods we naturally turn to God in joyful gratitude. Thanksgiving (to which the drunkard must be a stranger, for he abuses his mercies), like song, is to run like a golden thread through the whole of our life. In the depths of our heart we can be always thankful, though the language of thankfulness cannot be always on our lips. We have to thank God that a joyful thrill of the Spirit can pass through our being, better than of wine. We have to thank God for innumerable mercies.

New mercies each returning day Hover around us while we pray; New perils past, new sins forgiven, New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

We have to thank God even for our afflictions, which are blessings in disguise; for though, in so far as they are evil, we are to be reconciled to them, yet we have to thank God for that which is good in them, viz. the merciful design, the accompanying comfort, the resulting benefit. And as we receive all only through Christ, so we are to give thanks to the Father in the Name of Christ.

(c) Subjection. "Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ." It seems strange that this should be mentioned as one of the manifestations of spiritual elevation. We can only think of it in this way. As men under the excitement of wine are apt to be self-assertive, heady, so under the excitement of the Spirit we have such a fund of joy in ourselves that we are content to fall into every position of subjection in which God would place us. The particulars of this subjection follow; it here only concerns us to note the peculiar feeling which is associated with it, viz. the fear of Christ. We know that from all the joy of his first visit as a youth to the temple, the joy of his being there about his Father"s business, he could go down and be subject to his parents. And we know that, amid all the rapture of the transfiguration, he could yet think of subjection to the Father"s will in his decease. As, then, we reverence Christ and fear to offend him, let us (with all that we experience of the higher excitement) be subject one to another. R.F.

Vers. 15-21.

(2) Two worlds of one race.

then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." All these verses must be brought in under the same heading as the verses discussed in our preceding article, viz. Two worlds of one race. These verses continue to indicate the duties pertaining to the world of Christian men. The duties, which we previously discussed, were separation, reprehension, illumination, and resuscitation; the duties which we have now to notice are Christian consistency, holy excitement, and social worship.

I CHRISTIAN CONSISTENCY. "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." The verses teach that walking strictly in harmony with the Christian creed implies:

1. Wisdom. "Not as fools, but as wise." A conduct inconsistent with the Christian creed we profess is exceedingly foolish.

(1) It damages our own moral nature.

(2) It misrepresents the gospel of Christ.

(3) It insults the omniscience of God.

Hypocrisy is in every way unwise.

2. Diligence. "Redeeming the time up opportunities." How is time to be redeemed? Not by regaining any portion of the past. The past is irrecoverably gone. Not by inoperative regrets concerning the wrong of the past. Not by mere sentimental desires that the future may be better. How then?

(1) By deducing the true moral lessons of the past.

(2) By a deep and devout determination to avoid all the evils of the past.

(3) By turning every circumstance of our life to a right spiritual account.

Because the days are evil," says Paul. The times in which Paul wrote were corrupt; our times are corrupt. There are several things that make our times evil.

(1) A ruling secularism. How mercenary is our age!

(2) Religious formalism. The forms of religion abound every- where; the real spirit is rare. The "letter" is killing the spirit.

(3) Skeptical rationalism. The world"s philosophy, as it is called, is for the most part anti-theistic, anti-supernatural, anti-Christian. These elements fill the social atmosphere with the moral fungi that make our days" evil. Because our days are charged with so many evils we should be diligent; we should seize every opportunity to crush the wrong and to promote the right.

3. Inquiry. "Understanding what the will of the Lord is." God has a will concerning us, and it is our duty to endeavor to understand it, and for this purpose we must inquire into it.

II HOLY EXCITEMENT. "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." This verse suggests several thoughts.

1. Man has an instinctive craving for excitement. The words evidently imply this. Paul assumes that his readers must have excitement, in telling them in what they should and in what they should not find it. Excitement is a necessity of our nature. The soul has a deep hunger for it.

(1) Observation shows this. Look at society, either as it appears on the page of history or as it surrounds you now in all the activities of life, and you will find that the love of excitement explains much of all its restlessness, amusements, and toils.

(2) Consciousness shows this. All are conscious of this impulse. Monotony and stagnation become intolerable. We crave a quicker pulse, a warmer and a fuller passion. Yes, man has a native hunger for excitement. Hence the popularity of sensational theatres, sports, books, scenes, music, sermons.

2. Man has recourse to improper expedients for excitement. "Be not drunk with wine." Wine stimulates excitement. It quickens the pulse, it heats the blood, it fires the passions. Hence men like it. They use it, not for the sake of intoxication, but excitement. Wine-drinking is only one of many improper expedients for excitement. Drunkenness is here a type of whatever improperly stimulates the senses and enkindles the lusts.

(1) There is sensualism. How many seek excitement in an inordinate gratification of mere animal propensities!

(2) There is gambling. What thousands resort to the race-course, the exchange, the billiard-table, for excitement!

(3) There is immoral literature. Luscious tales, filthy narratives, and sensational romances; these are eagerly sought because they make the imagination glow with impure fires.

III SOCIAL WORSHIP. "Speaking to yourselves," etc. These verses (from the nineteenth to the twenty-first) show what is meant by being "filled with the Spirit.

1. High spiritual intercourse with man. "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Speaking to men the highest things in the highest forms of language poetry. High feeling always runs into poetry.

2. Devout fellowship with Christ. "Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." The soul pouring out its devotions in sweet melodies in the Divine ear.

3. Thankful recognition of Divine favors. "Giving thanks always for all things unto God.

4. Godly devotion to the common weal. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." All this is implied in being "filled with the Spirit?" And is there not sufficient excitement here? To be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with the Spirit"s ideas; and what exciting ideas are his! With the Spirit"s purposes; and what inspiring purposes are his! With the Spirit"s love; and what an immensity of stirring impulses is in that love! D.T.

The value of time.

I ALL TIME IS OF HIGH VALUE. They who kill time destroy one of the best talents God has given them and rob him of a sacred trust he has lent to them.

1. Time is not our own property. We are servants and have to account to our Master for our use of his hours.

2. Great concerns have to be attended to. Not only is art long while life is short, but duty is great, the claims of service are many, and the wants of our fellow-men are numerous. In this world of toil and strife and sorrow every moment is of value for some good deed of mercy or some solid work of truth.

3. Lost time is irrecoverable. We cannot redeem the time that has been wasted. A repentant diligence may bring back the inheritance that was squandered away in extravagant folly; careful attention may bring back the wasted health; but time once gone is gone forever.

4. Time may be made of increasing value. An hour is worth more in the use of one man than a day with another man.

II SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES ARE OF SPECIAL VALUE. St. Paul urges us to buy up "the seasons." All time is not of equal value. There are moments of peculiar preciousness. Woe to him who, through heedlessness or willful negligence, lets them slip! The moment when the rope floats by the drowning man it must be seized or he dies. Strike the iron while it is hot. Sow the seed in the spring if you would reap the harvest in the autumn.

1. Youth has its golden opportunities that belong go no other age. Young men especially should make the most of their own season.

2. Manhood has its time of vigor for work that will be beyond the strength of old age. The wise man will watch for occasions of usefulness that his word may be "in season.

III THE TRUE VALUE OF TIME CAN ONLY BE OBTAINED AT A COST. We have to buy it up before we can make use of it.

1. We must spend thought in considering how we can best use our time and in watching for right opportunities. For want of due consideration there is a frightful lack of economy of energy and time.

2. We must sacrifice our own pleasure in giving up time that we are tempted to expend on ourselves, our amusement or our rest, to the service of God. He who only gives to God his leisure moments, when he is worn and jaded with his own selfish work, makes but a poor offering.

3. We must put out greater energy in order to make our time of more value. Few of us work on the highest subjects at full pressure. The busiest might do more good if, when they cannot as yet find time for serving Christ, they would make time. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Circumspectly - Exactly, with the utmost accuracy, getting to the highest pitch of every point of holiness. Not as fools - Who think not where they are going, or do not make the best of their way.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Things demanded by the correctness of the Christian walk:

v. 15. See, then, that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

v. 16. redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

v. 17. Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

v. 18. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit,

v. 19. speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your he art to the Lord;

v. 20. giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

v. 21. submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

The apostle continues his admonition to the Christians to walk as the children of light, since such behavior on their part will always serve to impress the unbelievers: Take heed, then, carefully how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise. Christians should exercise all diligence, watch over their entire life with great diligence. Every step of their way through life must be taken with deliberate carefulness, lest in, showing themselves wise in the sense of Scriptures, in using the proper means for right ends, they forget the caution demanded by the situation and thus become unwise. For this reason they should also make proper use of their time, literally, take advantage of every opportunity, because the days are evil. It may sometimes cost the believers something in self-denial to speak to unbelievers of God and Christ, to rebuke their evil ways, and to show them the one way of salvation, especially since the days are-evil, and therefore do not seem appropriate for such works of love. The general opposition of the world against the Gospel of Christ is a hindering factor. Opportune moments are rare and should he grasped immediately. For this cause also the Christians should not become foolish, devoid of understanding. They are wise in the knowledge of the will of God and should therefore shun everything that tends to take away the understanding which they possess. Discerning they should be; they should learn to distinguish very carefully, mark with Christian jealousy, just what at this time, in this place, under the present conditions, is the will of the Lord. This is true in general, in the entire life of the Christians, as well as in particular, in the conduct of the Christians toward their environment. Note: It is this admonition which should be heeded with far greater diligence in our day, when people that claim to be believers are accommodating themselves to the ways of the world instead of observing the boundary line with the strictness demanded by the Lord. The will of the Lord must decide in any situation, not questions of expediency.

In order that Christians may retain the sane composure necessary for their calling in this world, the following is necessary, of course: And be not inebriated with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. People that are addicted to wine, that are given to an excess of strong drink, cannot make use of sane judgment; for intemperance results in dissoluteness, in an abandoned, debauched life, in a condition where the calm use of the enlightened reason is out of the question. Believers will rather at all times strive to be filled with the Spirit of God, in whose power they are able to walk in the light, to avoid the works of darkness, to inquire in all things for the will of God. The inspiration and enlightenment of the Spirit should govern the entire life of the Christian.

As an excellent aid toward attaining to this state and remaining in it, Paul mentions: Speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. In the Old Testament Psalms, as they were used in the services of the Christians from earliest times, in the hymns or chorals which were intended for use in public services, in spiritual songs of a more general tone and nature, but quite distinct from the worldly lyrics and odes, the Christians should edify one another. Would that this admonition were heeded more by the Christians of our days, in order that the great mass of incredibly vapid and unspeakably silly ragtime and jazz pieces would disappear and remain absent from all Christian homes! For true disciples of Jesus should edify and teach one another also by means of the songs which they sing, not only in public worship, but also in their homes. Both in public hymns of praise and thanksgiving and in the jubilant exulting of the believing heart which continues without interruption, all glory should be given to the Lord for His boundless mercy and goodness. By such singing, praying, confessing, heart and mind are lifted up as on mighty wings of joy, and the spiritual life is refreshed and steadied. For surely there is reason enough: Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father. The constant mercy and goodness of God makes thanksgiving a constant duty. There is never a time when a Christian has no occasion to give thanks to God, his heavenly Father, in Jesus Christ, his Lord, with heart and hand and voice, for His fatherly care, also on the days that seem dark. And where this thanksgiving arises from the believing heart, there is joy in the Spirit, joy in the Lord, power for every good work. This relation to God will, in turn, determine the relation of the Christians toward one another: Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. The love toward God and Christ which rules in the hearts of believers naturally finds its expression in a life of service toward their neighbor. The interests of the other are considered on the same level as one’s own, one believer endeavoring to prefer the other in honor, and all out of reverence for Christ, who did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister. See Rom 12:10; Gal 5:13.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These words may be considered two ways; either,

1. As a direction to those, who according to the foregoing exhortation, do reprove sinners for their unfruitful works of darkness, namely to walk very circumspectly themselves. "See then how circumspectly you walk," so the words may be rendered; and it intimates to us, that those only are fit to reprove sin in others who walk very circumspectly and unblamedly themselves; such only have authority to reprove, and such only can hope for success in reproving, Rather reprove them: see then that ye walk circumspectly Eph 5:11.

Secondly, The words may be considered as a new precept, added by St. Paul to the former given in this chapter, for directing the Ephesians to an holy life; he assures them, that if they will walk holily, they must walk circumspectly, and that circumspect walking is wise walking.

Observe here, 1. the necessity of circumspect walking: See that ye walk circumspectly.

Learn hence, That it is impossible for a christian to maintain a holy course of obedience to the commands of God, without great care and caution, heedfulness and circumspection; none can walk holily, that do not walk circumspectly and watchfully. Such is that weakness and inconstancy of our nature, so many and so subtle are our spiritual enemies, and so intimate with us, so strict and exact is the law of God we are to walk by, and so holy and jealous is that God we are to walk before, that it is impossible to walk before him acceptably, if we do not walk circumspectly.

Observe, 2. As the necessity, so the excellency of circumspect walking: it is not foolish, unadvised, and unaccountable walking; but it is truly wise walking; such walking as the wisdom of God recommends to us, and such walking as bespeaks us truly and really wise. Such as walk loosely, walk foolishly: careless walking is foolish walking; but circumspect walking is wise walking; for it is to be wise for ourselves, and wise to our best and true interest; it is to be wise for time, and wise to eternity; wise both for time, and wise to eternity; wise both for this, and for the coming world. See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15–17. Walk circumspectly. The Revision makes the meaning clear.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Look carefully how you live—not as unwise but as wise

Unwise people do not guard themselves against sin. Wise people, however, can identify sin and flee from it. AT: "Therefore you must be careful to live as a wise person rather than a foolish person" (See: Double Negatives and Parallelism)

Redeem the time

Using time wisely is spoken of as if it were redeeming the time. AT: "Do the best things you can with your time" or "Use time wisely" or "Put time to its best use" (See: Metaphor)

because the days are evil

The word "days" is a metonym for what people do during those days. AT: "because the people around you are doing all kinds of evil things" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

wise

redeem

evil

fool

will of God

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

15. For a life according to this ideal St Paul feels that two qualities are pre-eminently necessary, ‘moral thoughtfulness’ and spiritual enthusiasm overflowing at once in thankfulness to God and in disciplined subordination. He contrasts it with the recklessness and drunken dissipation of the society by which they were surrounded.

Βλέπετε οὖν ἀκριβῶς πῶς περιπατεῖτε. Here, as in 2Co 7:1, we have a clear expression of the good after which the Pharisees were striving. St Paul’s training κατὰ ἀκρίβειαν τοῦ πατρῴου νόμου (Act 22:3; cf. Act 26:5) had not been all thrown away. Only it is important to notice the change in emphasis produced by the change in order according to the true text. St Paul does not require men ‘to walk circumspectly.’ That suggests a life in the fetters of an external scrupulosity. He bids them keep a close watch on the principles by which they are regulating their lives. Contrast the description of modern practice in Westcott’s Disciplined Life, p. 2, ‘We trust to an uncultivated notion of duty for an improvised solution of unforeseen difficulties.’

μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί. Cf. the stress on σοφία in Eph 1:8; Eph 1:17.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15.] He now resumes the hortative strain, interrupted by the digression of vv. 12-14. Take heed then (there is not any immediate connexion with the last verse: but the οὖν resumes from the περιπατεῖτε in ver. 8, and that which followed it there) how ye walk strictly (the construction is exactly as in ref. 1 Cor., ἕκαστος δὲ βλεπέτω πῶς ἐποικοδομεῖ. ‘Take heed, of what sort your ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖν is:’—the implication being, ‘take heed not only that your walk be exact, strict, but also of what sort that strictness is—not only that you have a rule, and keep to it, but that that rule be the best one.’ So that a double exhortation is involved. See Ellic. here: and the Fritzschiorum Opuscula, pp. 208 f., note), (namely) not as unwise, but as wise (qualification of the ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖτε, and expansion of the πῶς (μή, subj.): no περιπατοῦντες need be supplied after μή, as Harl.), buying up for yourselves (the) opportunity (viz. of good, whenever occurring; let it not pass by, but as merchants carefully looking out for vantages, make it your own: see Col 4:5. The compound ἐξ- does not suggest the question ‘from whom’ it is to be bought, as Beng., Calv., al., nor imply mere completeness, as Mey., but rather refers to the ‘collection out of’ (see reff. Gal.), the buying up, as we say: culling your times of good out of a land where there are few such flowers. The middle gives the reflexive sense: cf. ref. Dan.), because the days (of your time,—in which you live) are evil (see above. ὁ ἐξαγοραζόμενος τὸν ἀλλότριον δοῦλον, ἐξαγοράζεται κ. κτᾶται αὐτόν. ἐπεὶ οὖν ὁ καιρὸς δουλεύει τοῖς πονηροῖς, ἐξαγοράσασθε αὐτόν, ὥστε καταχρήσασθαι αὐτῷ τρὸς εὐσέβειαν. Severianus, in Cramer’s Catena).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. βλέπετε οὖν ἀκριβῶς πῶς περιπατεῖτε.

This is the reading of א* B 17 and some other MSS., Origen, and probably Chrys. But πῶς ἀκριβῶς, אc A D G K L P, with most MSS., Vulg., Syr. (both), Arm., Theodoret, Jerome, etc. Chrysostom has ἀκριβῶς πῶς in text and comment, but in the latter πῶς ἀκριβῶς occurs presently after, also βλέπετε πῶς περιπατεῖτε. As πῶς ἀκρ. is the common later reading, it is probable that its occurrence in the second place in the comm. is due to a copyist of Chrys. The variation in the original text may have arisen from an accidental omission of πῶς after -βῶς (it is actually om. in Eth.), it being there inserted in the wrong place. In Eadie’s comment. Exo_2, πῶς is similarly om.

οὖν is resumptive, “to return to our exhortation.” Some, however, regard this as an inference from what immediately precedes, viz. “since ye are enlightened by Christ” (Ewald, Braune); but as the substance of the exhortation is clearly the same as in vv. 8-10, it is unnecessary to look on this as an inference from ver. 14. Harless follows Calvin, who says: “Si aliorum discutere tenebras fideles debent fulgore suo, quanto minus caecutire debent in proprio vitae instituto?” But this would seem to require an emphatic αὐτοί.

On ἀκριβῶς compare Act 26:5, κατὰ τὴν ἀκριβεστάτην αἵρεσιν. As περιπατεῖτε is a fact, the indicative is correctly used, and is exactly parallel to 1Co 3:2, ἕκαστος βλεπέτω πῶς ἐποικοδομεῖ. Most commentators expound the other reading. Fritzsche’s view of this has been generally adopted (Opuscula, p. 209 n.), viz. that ἀκρ. περ. = “tanquam ad regulam et amussim vitam dirigere,” the whole meaning πῶς τὸ ἀκριβῶς ἐργάζεσθε = “videte quomodo circumspecte vivatis h. e. quomodo illud efficiatis, ut provide vivatis.” He exposes the fallacy of Winer’s contention (subsequently abandoned), that the words were a concise expression for βλέπετε πῶς περιπατεῖτε, δεῖ δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀκριβῶς περιπατεῖν. He thinks the reading ἀκρλβῶς πῶς was a correction on the part of those who, being familiar with ἀκ. βλέπειν, εἰδέναι, etc., were offended with ἀκρ. περιπατεῖν. which is, he says, most suitable to this place.

μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι, explaining πῶς, and so dependent, like it, on βλέπετε, hence the subjective negation (Winer, § 55. 1). Then ωεριπατοῦντες need not be supplied.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See that ye walk circumspectly [βλεπετε πως ακριβως περιπατειτε] . Lit., look how exactly ye walk. The best texts place twv how after ajkribwv exactly. So Rev., look carefully how ye walk.

Circumspectly is better rendered carefully. It means exactly, accurately, from akrov the farthest point. See on inquired diligently, Mt 2:6; and compare Luk 1:3; Act 18:25, notes.

Not as unwise, but as wise. Explanatory of carefully.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.