5:1,2Just as children imitate their parents, we should follow God's example. His great love for us led him to sacrifice himself so that we might live. Our love for others should be of the same kind—a love that goes beyond affection to self-sacrificing service.
Life Application Study BibleEphesiansChapter 5
Ephesians 5
New Living Translation · Life Application Study Bible · Original pages: 2007, 2008, 2009
A few verse numbers on this page were hard to read in the scan and are marked with a dotted underline — compare with the original page image if in doubt.
5Ephesians 5
Living in the Light
1Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us* and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. 3Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people. 4Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. 5You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. 7Don’t participate in the things these people do. 8For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the LORD. So live as people of light! 9For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. 10Carefully determine what pleases the LORD. 11Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people doin secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them,
14for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,“Awake, O sleeper,rise up from the dead,and Christ will give you light.”
Living by the Spirit's Power
1518So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the LORD wants you to do. 18Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, 9singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the LORD in your hearts. 20And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ.
Spirit-Guided Relationships: Wives and Husbands
2tAnd further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the LORD. 23For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24s the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. 25For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word.* 2?7He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 20And we are members of his body. 31As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife,and the two are united into one.”* 32This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Textual footnotes
- 5:2 Some manuscripts read loved you.
- 5:26 Greek washed by water with the word.
- 5:31 Gen 2:24.
Life Application Notes 7 notes
5:4Obscene stories and coarse jokes are so common that we begin to take them for granted. Paul cautions, however, that improper language should have no place in the Christian’s conversation because it does not reflect God’s gracious presence in us. How can we praise God and remind others of his goodness when we are speaking coarsely?
5:5-7Paul does not forbid all contact with unbelievers. Jesus taught his followers to befriend sinners and lead them to him (Luke 5:30-32). Instead, Paul writes against the life-style of People who make excuses for bad behavior and recommend its practice to others—whether they are in the church or outside Of it. Such people quickly pollute the church and endanger its unity and purpose. We must befriend unbelievers if we are to lead them to Christ, but we must be wary of those who are viciously evil, immoral, or opposed to all that Christianity stands for. Such people are more likely to influence us for evil than we are to influence them for good.
5:8As people who have light from the LORD, our actions should reflect our faith. We should live above reproach morally so that we will reflect God’s goodness to others. Jesus stressed this truth in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:15, 16).
5:10-14It is important to avoid the “worthless deeds of evil and darkness” (any pleasure or activity that results in sin), but we must go even further. Paul instructs us to expose these deeds, because our silence may be interpreted as approval. God needs people who will take a stand for what is right. Christians must lovingly speak out for what is true and right.
5:14This is nota direct quote from Scripture but was probably taken from a hymn welt known to the Ephesians. The hymn seems to have been based on Isaiah 26:19; 51:17; 52:1; 60:1; and Malachi 4:2. Paul was appealing to the Ephesians to wake up and realize the dangerous condition into which some of them had been slipping.
5:15,16By referring to these days as evil, Paul was communicating his sense of urgency because of evil’s pervasiveness. We need the same sense of urgency because our days are also difficult. We must keep our standards high, act wisely, and do good whenever we can. brides were prepared for marriage by a ceremonial bath. It is God's Word that cleanses us (John 17:17; Titus 3:5). §:31-33 The union of husband and wife merges two persons in such a way that little can affect one without also affecting the other. Oneness in marriage does not mean losing your personality in the personality of the other. instead, it means caring for your Spouse as you care for yourself, learning to anticipate his or her needs, helping the other person become all he or she can be. The creation story tells of God’s plan that husband and wife should be one (Genesis 2:24), and Jesus also referred to this plan (Matthew 19:4-6).
Charts, profiles & sidebars from the printed pages
Study feature · page 2008
children to parents and also parents to children. This kind of mutual submission preserves order and harmony in the family, while it increases jove and respect among family members. 5:22-24 Although some people have distorted Paul's teaching on submission by giving unlimited authority to husbands, we cannot get around it: Paul told wives to submit to their husbands. The fact that a teaching is not popular is no reason to discard it. One way to disarm the antagonism that the external culture may inject into the marriage relationship is to remember that the wife gets to submit and the husband gets to die. According to the Bible, the man is the spiritual head of the family, and his wife should acknowledge his leadership. But real spiritual leadership involves loving service (a form of dying). Just as Christ served the disciples, even to the point of washing their feet,.so the husband is to serve his wife. A wise and Christ-honoring husband will not take advantage of his leadership role, and a wise and Christ-honoring wife will not try to undermine her husband’s leadership. Either approach causes disunity and friction in marriage. 5:22-28 Why did Paul tell wives to submit and husbands to love? Perhaps Christian women, newly freed in Christ, found submission difficult; perhaps Christian men, used to the Roman custom of giving unlimited power to the head of the family, were not used to treating their wives with respect and fove. Of course both husbands and wives should submit to each other (5:21), just as both should love each other. 5:25ff Some Christians have thought that Paul was negative about marriage because of the counsel he gave in 1 Corinthians 7:32-38. These verses in Ephesians, however, show a high view of marriage. Here marriage is not a practical necessity or a cure for lust, but a picture of the relationship between Christ and his church! Why the apparent difference? Paul’s counsel in 1 Corinthians was designed for a state of emergency during a time of persecution and crisis. Paul's counsel to the Ephesians is more the biblical ideal for marriage. Marriage, for Paul, is a holy union, a living symbol, a precious relationship that needs tender, self-sacrificing care. 5:25-30 Paul devotes twice as many words to telling husbands to love their wives as to telling wives to submit to their husbands. How should a man love his wife? (1) He should be willing to sacrifice everything for her, (2) make her well being of primary importance, and (3) care for her as he cares for his own body. No wife needs to fear submitting to a man who treats her in this way. 5:26, 27 Christ's death makes the church holy and clean. He Cleanses us from the old ways of sin and sets us apart for his special sacred service (Hebrews 10:29; 13:12). Christ cleansed the church by the washing of baptism. Through baptism we are prepared for entrance into the church-just as ancient Near Eastern
§:18 Paul contrasts getting drunk with wine, which produces a temporary “high,” to being filled with the Spirit, which produces lasting joy. Getting drunk with wine is associated with the old way of life and its selfish desires. In Christ, we have a better joy, higher and longer lasting, to cure our depression, monotony, or tension. We should not be concerned with how much of the Holy Spirit we have but with how much of us the Holy Spirit has. Submit yourself daily to his leading and draw constantly on his power. 5:18, 19 The effects of alcoho! are obvious, but what happens when we are under the influence of the Holy Spirit? In these verses, Paul tists three by-products of the Spirit's influence in our fives: singing, making music, and giving thanks. Paul did not intend to suggest that believers only discuss religious matters, but that whatever we do or say should be permeated with an attitude of joy, thankfulness to God, and encouragement of others. Instead of whining and complaining—which our culture has raised to an art form—we are to focus on the goodness of God and his mercies toward us. How would others characterize your words and attitudes? 5:20 When you feel down, you may find it difficult to give thanks. Take heart—in ail things God works for our good if we love him and are called by him (Romans 8:28). Thank God, not for your problems but for the strength he is building in you through the difficult experiences of your life. You can be sure that God’s perfect love will see you through. 5:21, 22 Submitting to another person is an often misunderstood concept. It does not mean becoming a doormat. Christ—at whose name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:10)—submitted his will to the Father, and we honor Christ by following his example. When we submit to God, we become more willing to obey his command to submit to others, that is, to subordinate our rights to theirs. In a marriage relationship, both husband and wife are calted to submit. For the wife, this means willingly following her husband's leadership in Christ. For the husband, it means putting aside his own interests in order to care for his wife. Submission is rarely a problem in homes where both partners have a strong relationship with Christ and where each is concerned for the happiness of the other. §:22-24 In Paul's day, women, children, and slaves were to submit to the head of the family: Slaves would submit until they were freed, male children until they grew up, and women and girls their whole lives. Paul emphasized the equality of all believers in Christ (Galatians 3:28), but he did not suggest overthrowing Roman society to achieve it. Instead, he counseled all believers to submit to one another by choice—wives to husbands and also fusbands to wives; slaves to masters and also masters to slaves;
Study feature · page 2009
GOD’S ARMOR FOR US We are engaged ina spiritual battle—all believers find themselves subject to the devil’s attacks because they are no longer on the devil's side. Thus, Paul tells us to use every piece of God’s armor to resist the devil’s attacks and to stand true to God in the midst of those attacks.
Application
Piece of Armor Belt Body armor
Use Truth Righteousness
The devil fights with lies, and sometimes his lies sound like truth; but only believers have God’s truth, which can defeat the devil's lies.
The devil often attacks our heart—the seat of our emotions, self-worth, and trust. God’s righteousness is the body armor that protects our heart and ensures his approval. He approves of us because he loves us and sent his Son to die for us.
The devil wants us to think that telling others the Good News is a worthless and hopeless task—the size of the task is too big and the negative responses are too much to handle. But the shoes God gives us are the motivation to continue to proclaim the true peace that is available in God—news everyone needs to hear. What we see are the devil's attacks in the form of insults, setbacks, and temptations. But the shield of faith protects us from the devil's fiery arrows. With God's perspective, we can see beyond our circumstances and know that ultimate victory is ours. The devil wants to make us doubt God, Jesus, and our salvation. The helmet protects our mind from doubting God’s saving work for us. The sword is the only weapon of offense in this list of armor. There are times when we need to take the offensive against the devil. When we are tempted, we need to trust in the truth of God’s Word.
Shoes
Peace that comes from the Good News
Shield
Faith
Helmet Salvation
Sword Word of God