Ephesians — Chapter 5

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: Paul writes from house arrest in Rome, probably about AD 60–62 (Acts 28:30), to believers in Ephesus and likely other churches across Asia. Ephesus was a wealthy port, proud of its great Temple of Artemis, and full of trade guilds, banquets and religious festivals where sex, wine and worship mixed freely. Chapters 1–3 told what God has done in Christ. Chapters 4–6 tell how to "walk" in a manner worthy of that calling (4:1). Chapter 4 ended with "be kind to one another… forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you" (4:32). Chapter 5 flows straight on from that "as God… forgave you," and the chapter break here is not Paul's.

Walk in Love (vv1–21)

• "Be imitators of God, as beloved children" (v1). The Greek word is mimētai, the root of our "mimic." Children copy their parents without being told to. This is the only place in Paul's letters where he tells believers to imitate God directly. Elsewhere he says "imitate me, as I imitate Christ" (1 Cor 11:1). The motive is not fear but belonging: we are "beloved" before we are asked to act like it. Jesus said the same (Matt 5:44–48).
• "Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us" (v2). "Walk" is Paul's word for a whole way of life, and it runs through these chapters (4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15). The pattern of love is not a feeling but the cross. "Gave himself up" returns in v25, where it becomes the model for husbands.
• "A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (v2). This is temple language. Burnt offerings are called "a pleasing aroma to the LORD" (Lev 1:9). The first use of the phrase is after the flood, when Noah's sacrifice rises to God (Gen 8:21). Paul calls the Philippians' gift to him the same thing (Phil 4:18). Christ's self-giving was the sacrifice God delighted in, and believers' love for one another shares in its fragrance.
• "Must not even be named among you" (v3). Sexual immorality (porneia, a broad word for any sex outside marriage), impurity and covetousness are paired. In Ephesus, sex was woven into religion and banquet life, and nobody thought it strange. Paul says these should not even be a topic of easy conversation among people called "saints," which means "holy ones."
• "No filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking" (v4). "Crude joking" is eutrapelia, used only here in the New Testament. In classical Greek it could mean a quick, versatile wit, and Aristotle even counted it a virtue. The lexicon notes that here it has slid into its coarse sense: the clever innuendo, the joke that turns everything into sex. Paul's alternative is surprising: not silence, but "thanksgiving" (eucharistia). The two Greek words sound alike, which may be a deliberate play.
• "Covetous (that is, an idolater)" (v5). Greed is worship. Whatever a person cannot live without becomes their god. Paul says it again in Colossians 3:5, and Jesus said no one can serve God and money (Matt 6:24). Greed sits beside sexual sin because both are the same hunger: taking what is not yours to have.
• "No inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God" (v5). This is not a claim that one sinful act cancels salvation. Paul describes the settled pattern of a life (compare 1 Cor 6:9–11, where he adds "and such were some of you"). One Greek article governs "Christ and God," so it reads as one kingdom held jointly. Some see a hint of Christ's deity in the grammar. That is possible, though the case rests more firmly on other texts.
• "Let no one deceive you with empty words" (v6). Some voices said the body doesn't matter and what you do with it is spiritually neutral. Paul calls that hollow talk. "Sons of disobedience" is a Hebrew way of saying people whose lives are defined by disobedience (2:2).
• "At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord" (v8). Not "in darkness" but "darkness" itself. Conversion is not a moral upgrade. It changes who a person is. Jesus called himself "the light of the world" (John 8:12) and then called his disciples the same (Matt 5:14). The light is "in the Lord," borrowed light, like the moon's.
• "The fruit of light" (v9). Later manuscripts, followed by the KJV, read "fruit of the Spirit," most likely a scribe echoing Galatians 5:22. The oldest manuscripts read "light," which fits the passage's picture. Note the contrast: darkness produces "unfruitful works" (v11), but light bears fruit. Good, right and true sums up what grows when light shines.
• "Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord" (v10). The verb (dokimazō) means to test, as metal is tested. Christian living is not only following a list. It is learning by practice what delights God (Rom 12:2).
• "Take no part… but instead expose them" (vv11–13). "Expose" (elenchō) means to bring to light and show for what it is. Paul does not mean describing sins in detail, since "it is shameful even to speak" of them (v12). The best exposure is a life lived openly in the light, which makes darkness look like what it is (John 3:20–21). Light does more than reveal. What is exposed to it can itself become light (v14). Sinners exposed by grace become children of light.
• "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead" (v14). "It says" introduces a quotation, but these exact words appear nowhere in the Old Testament. Most scholars think it is a line from an early Christian hymn, perhaps sung at baptisms, built on Isaiah's calls: "Arise, shine, for your light has come" (Isa 60:1) and "awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust" (Isa 26:19). If so, it is one of the oldest Christian songs we have.
• "Look carefully then how you walk" (v15). "Carefully" (akribōs) means precisely, with attention. The picture is someone picking their way along a dangerous path at night, the kind of wisdom Proverbs describes (Prov 4:18–19).
• "Making the best use of the time" (v16). The KJV says "redeeming the time." The verb exagorazō is a market word, "to buy up," and here it means buying up for oneself. Paul uses the same verb for Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law (Gal 3:13). The word for time is kairos, the right moment or opportunity, not chronos, clock time. The idea is to snap up every opportunity like a shopper who knows the sale ends soon, "because the days are evil."
• "Understand what the will of the Lord is" (v17). God's will is not mainly a hidden puzzle about which job or house to choose. Much of it is plainly stated, and this chapter is full of it (compare 1 Thess 4:3; 5:18).
• "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery" (v18). "Debauchery" (asōtia) means wastefulness, a life that throws itself away. The related adverb describes the prodigal son's "reckless living" (Luke 15:13). Ephesus had a strong cult of Dionysus, god of wine, whose worshipers sought religious ecstasy through drunkenness. Some scholars think Paul has this in mind. Either way the contrast is pointed: wine takes control and wastes a life, and the Spirit takes control and fills it.
• "Be filled with the Spirit" (v18). The grammar matters. It is a command, so it is not optional. It is passive, so it is something God does in us, not something we produce. And it is present tense, so it is ongoing: "keep being filled." The Tyndale notes agree that the form points to a repeated, continuing process rather than a single event. Pentecost already showed that Spirit-filled people can be mistaken for drunk (Acts 2:13–15).
• What filling looks like (vv19–21). In Greek, v18 is followed by a chain of participles: addressing, singing, making melody, giving thanks, submitting. These are the results of being filled. The surprise is how ordinary they are. The marks of the Spirit here are songs, gratitude and humility, not dramatic experiences.
• "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (v19). Probably the Old Testament psalms, songs of praise to God and Christ, and other Spirit-prompted songs. The three should not be divided too sharply. Notice the direction: "addressing one another." Singing in church teaches and encourages the people around us as well as praising God (Col 3:16). Around AD 112 the Roman governor Pliny reported that Christians met before dawn and sang "a hymn to Christ as to a god."
• "Giving thanks always and for everything" (v20). Paul is writing this in chains.
• "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" (v21). This verse is a hinge. It closes the list of what Spirit-filling looks like and opens the household section that follows. "Submitting" is hypotassō, originally a military word for ranking soldiers under an officer. In ordinary use it means placing oneself under another. Here it is mutual, "to one another," and the motive is "reverence" (literally "fear") of Christ. Some later manuscripts read "fear of God." Christians agree that v21 describes a humble, others-first spirit among all believers (Phil 2:3). They differ, as the next section shows, on how it shapes the specific relationships that follow.
• Commentators: Guzik stresses the grammar of v18: present tense, passive and imperative, a continual filling that is commanded but received rather than manufactured. That matches the Tyndale notes. Matthew Henry puts it more bluntly: "Those who are full of drink are not likely to be full of the Spirit." On v16 he writes, "Our time is a talent given us by God for some good end." JFB defends "fruit of the light" in v9 as the oldest reading. It contrasts sins as "works," which produce nothing lasting, with graces as "fruit." It says covetousness is the "worship of the creature instead of the Creator" and reads the hymn of v14 as a free paraphrase of Isaiah 60:1. Guzik and the Tyndale notes both take v14 as an early Christian song. Guzik also cautions that "exposing" darkness never means feeding curiosity about it.

Wives and Husbands (vv22–33)

• The household code. Ancient writers from Aristotle on taught "household management": how the male head should rule his wife, children and slaves. Paul uses the familiar form (5:22–6:9; compare Col 3:18–4:1; 1 Pet 2:18–3:7) but changes it in three ways. He speaks directly to wives, children and slaves as moral agents, not just to the man in charge. He grounds every duty in Christ. And he lays the heaviest demand on the one with power. No ancient code told husbands to love their wives the way someone dies for another.
• "Wives, submit to your own husbands" (v22). In the oldest manuscripts this verse has no verb of its own. It borrows "submitting" from v21: "submitting to one another… wives, to your own husbands." Later copies supplied the verb to make the sense clear. The grammar ties a wife's submission to the mutual submission of all believers, while still giving it a particular direction. "Your own" husband limits it: this is about marriage, not women deferring to men in general.
• "As to the Lord" (v22). This sets the motive, not the limit. A wife honors her husband as part of her service to Christ, which also means she is never required to follow him into sin (Acts 5:29).
• "The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church" (v23). "Head" is kephalē. Scholars have long debated whether it means "authority over" or "source" (like the head of a river). The lexicon lists the literal head and the figurative use for husband and Christ without settling it. In Ephesians, Christ as head means both rule (1:22) and the source of the body's growth and life (4:15–16). Paul immediately adds "and is himself its Savior." The husband's model is a head who uses his position to save, not to be served (Mark 10:45).
• Readings differ. Complementarian readers (many Reformed, Baptist and evangelical churches) see a lasting pattern of loving, servant-hearted male leadership in the home. They ground it in creation (Gen 2) and in the Christ-and-church picture, which does not change with culture. Egalitarian readers stress v21's mutual submission. They see Paul working within a first-century household structure to transform it from within, much as he did with slavery in 6:5–9, so that the pattern points toward full mutuality. Both sides take the text as Scripture. Both agree it rules out any domineering, self-serving husband, and that the chapter's weight falls on Christlike love.
• "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (v25). The verb is agapaō, love that acts for the other's good at cost to itself. The measure is the cross. Paul spends three verses on wives and nine on husbands. In a world where a husband held nearly all the legal power, this was the radical command.
• "Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word" (v26). Behind this lies the Jewish custom of a bride's ceremonial bath before her wedding. Behind that is Ezekiel 16:8–14, where God finds Jerusalem as an abandoned girl, washes her with water, clothes her in splendor and makes her his bride. "Washing" is loutron, a bath. Many interpreters see a reference to baptism (Titus 3:5). Others read it as a picture of cleansing through the gospel itself (John 15:3). "Word" here is rhēma, a spoken word, probably the gospel proclaimed and confessed. The two views are close, since in the New Testament baptism goes with the word preached and believed.
• "Without spot or wrinkle… holy and without blemish" (v27). The language of a spotless sacrifice (Lev 22:20) and a radiant bride (Rev 19:7–8; 21:2). Christ does not wait for his bride to make herself lovely. He makes her lovely. The goal is the final presentation, the same "holy and blameless" purpose stated in 1:4.
• "As their own bodies" (vv28–29). Because husband and wife are "one flesh," for a husband to neglect his wife is to harm himself. "Nourishes and cherishes": the second word (thalpō) means to keep warm, used of a nursing mother caring for her children (1 Thess 2:7). Christ does this for his church, and husbands are to do it for their wives.
• "Because we are members of his body" (v30). Some later manuscripts, followed by the KJV, add "of his flesh, and of his bones." The words come from Genesis 2:23, where Adam greets Eve. They were probably added by a scribe, since the oldest manuscripts lack them. The thought fits Paul's argument either way.
• "The two shall become one flesh" (v31). Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, the text Jesus used to teach on marriage and divorce (Matt 19:5). "Leave" and "hold fast" mean marriage creates a new household and a new first loyalty.
• "This mystery is profound… it refers to Christ and the church" (v32). "Mystery" (mystērion) in Paul does not mean a puzzle. It means a secret God kept hidden and has now revealed (3:3–6). Paul's point is startling: marriage was designed from the beginning as a picture of Christ and his people. The real thing is Christ and the church, and every marriage is a small copy. The Latin Vulgate rendered mystērion as sacramentum, and medieval theology later used this verse to support marriage as a sacrament. Protestants read "mystery" as revealed truth rather than a sacrament. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians still count marriage among the sacraments.
• "Love his wife as himself, and… the wife see that she respects her husband" (v33). Paul sums up in two words, love and respect. "Respects" is the verb phobeō, the same root as "reverence" in v21. It means honoring regard, not cringing fear.
• Commentators: Matthew Henry opens with mutual submission: "We must be of a yielding and of a submissive spirit." He holds that headship was given to the man by creation, but adds that "Christ's authority is exercised over the church for the saving of her from evil." He also limits a wife's obedience to what is consistent with her duty to God, and calls the love of Christ "a pattern to husbands." Guzik notes that "submit" is missing from v22 in many ancient manuscripts and is carried over from v21. He takes "as to the Lord" as the motive, not a blank check, and lists cases where a wife is not bound, such as being asked to sin or suffering abuse. He also says the agapē Christ shows does not wait to be earned. On v26, Guzik reads the "word" as the spoken message and plays down baptism. JFB takes the opposite line, seeing the "laver" of baptism joined to the word, and quotes Augustine: "Take away the word, and what is the water save water?" JFB also notes the oldest manuscripts lack "of his flesh and of his bones" in v30 and warns against reading the Vulgate's "sacrament" in v32 as Paul's meaning.

Pointing to Christ

The whole chapter hangs on one phrase, used twice: Christ "gave himself up" (vv2, 25). His sacrifice is the fragrant offering that makes imitation of God possible. It is the light that turns darkness into light, and the love that washes an unlovely bride and presents her radiant. Paul's last surprise is that marriage, the most ordinary relationship there is, was always about this. Every faithful husband's love and every wife's honor point past themselves to the Bridegroom who died for his bride and will one day present her "without spot or wrinkle."

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik covers walking in love, light, and wisdom, being filled with the Spirit, and the marriage relationship as a picture of Christ and the church.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Ephesians -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.

Reflection

• Loving as Christ Loved (v.2) — Believers are called to walk in a love that gave itself sacrificially, following Christ's example. Where in your relationships does love cost you something rather than just feel convenient?
• Living as Light, Not Just Near It (v.8) — Paul says believers are no longer merely in darkness but have become light itself. Where in your life are you still hiding in shadows instead of letting your life shine?
• Making the Most of Your Days (v.16) — Paul urges believers to redeem the time because the days are evil and opportunities are limited. What would change about how you spend today if you treated your time as genuinely precious?
• Filled With the Spirit (v.18) — Paul commands believers to be continually filled with the Spirit rather than controlled by anything else. What tends to fill you instead — busyness, screens, worry — and how do you position yourself to be filled by the Spirit instead?
• A Sacrificial, Christlike Love (v.25) — Husbands are called to love their wives the way Christ loved the church, giving Himself up for her. Where does your love for those closest to you fall short of that sacrificial standard?
• Marriage as a Picture of the Gospel (v.32) — Paul calls the marriage relationship a great mystery that reflects Christ's relationship with the church. How does seeing marriage this way change how you view and treat your spouse?