Introduction

Sermon text with italics and bold and John 3:16 and v. 20.

Literary Context:

The immediate context of Ephesians 5.15-33 falls within the second half of Ephesians, acting as a transitional passage, the culmination of the numerous number of imperatives Paul uses beginning at Ephesians 4.25. From 5.15 on, Paul's focus in wise walking (living), that is walking in a manner directly related to the transformation of the previous verses.

Verse 5.15 is Paul's final use of pe??pat?? in Ephesians. It is the last of five uses of the word in the second half the book beginning at 4.1, "I exhort you all, therefore, bound in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling to which you all were called"; 4.17, "This, therefore, I say and implore in the Lord, that you never again walk as the Gentiles walk in futility of their minds"; 5.1-2, "Be, therefore immitators of God just as His beloved children and you must walk in love, just as Christ also love us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God, a fragrant aroma"; 5.8, "For you all were once darkness, but now light in the Lord, you all must walk as children of light."

These five occurances of pe??pat?? for their referent depend upon Ephesians 2.8-10. The believer is saved by grace through faith. Though salvation is not by works, God has prepared in advance good works that believers might walk in them. And yet, Paul exhorts the Ephesians and commands them with imperatives to walk. Paul intentionally chose, "walk," as his metaphor for life and behavior in the book because the image of walking fits with his theology of good works. The believer does not do good works or work good, rather he simply walks. Walking is an action that comes naturally to people. It just happens. Walking is a normal and natural as breathing. This is one serious flaw in dynamic equivanlent translations and a few semi-literal translations which translate, pe??pat?? as "live" instead of "walk." These translations cause the reader to miss out on the simplicity of Paul's command. Living is viewed as a hard and challenging activity, requiring strain, focus and work, things which Paul seems to have been seeking to avoid. Louw and Nide list twenty four synonyms for behavior and conduct in their lexicon, but Paul chose pe??pat?? specifically to be a thematic word for Ephesians. Clearly his emphasis is not doing, but being.

The following occurances of pe??pat?? in Ephesians flow from Ephesians 2.10. In 4.1 and 4.17. Paul describes two manners of walking. One follows is a call to walk in a worthy manner of God's calling and the other of the former life as unbelievers. The choice is clear. Only one of these paths fits the picture of 2.10. Walk worthily in the manner you have been called, in the good works God has prepared beforehand that you might walk in them. The next three uses acts a examples of how the believer ought to walk. The believer is to walk in love, as children of light, and as wise.

This entire passage continually builds, each imperative building upon the foundation of the previous. So that by the time Paul readings arrive at 5.15ff, he give his audience twenty-two imperatives in 17 separate verses. In the verses coming up to the household codes the imperative is used five more times. But what is most interesting is that there are only two more uses of the imperative mood in the rest of chapter five, both directed toward the husband and both are the same verb, "a?apa?." Which is nothing new or at all limited to only the husband. As mentioned above, the entire body is commanded to walk in love (5.2).

The passage, 5.15-33, also has some distinct linguistic elements connecting it to the rest of the book as well, both in vocabulary and syntax. The first of these appears in the the occurance of "????µa" in 5.17, one of seven occurances. The significance of the repetition will be discussed at length in the exegesis.

In 5.2, "?a? pe??pate?te ?? ???p?, ?a??? ?a? ? ???st?? ???p?se? ?µ?? ?a? pa??d??e? ?a?t?? ?p?? ?µ??" is repeated again in the passage with "?? ??d?e?, ??ap?te t?? ???a??a?, ?a??? ?a? ? ???st?? ???p?se? t?? ?????s?a? ?a? ?a?t?? pa??d??e? ?p?? a?t??" in 5.25 The direct connection discussed above is rather evident. All believers are called to walk in love just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us and the same manner, the husbands are commanded to love just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Condering the already blurred distinctions between family life and church life, these parallel statements affirm the context of the household codes to essentially be an extension of the life and activities of the church or perhaps a specific example and application of Paul's words above to individual relationships.

The third linguistic connection between 5.15-33 and the rest of the book is Paul's repetition of another theme: that of two becoming one found in 5.31. This is a concept Paul introduces in chapter two of Ephesians referring to the Jews and Gentiles and is directly expressed in 2.15.

Paul's intentions of chapters two and three deal most specifically with the reconciliation between the Jews and the Gentiles. Thus within this potential parallel, the question arises whether the same concept is the theme of Paul's so called "household codes." I would argue that it is for sevenal reasons.

The words themselves contain multiple similarities and more specifically, the concept of making one out of two, "and the two will be one flesh" / "so that He might create two into one new man, making peace." One might argue against the parallel on the grounds that Paul is quoting Genesis in 5.31, but who is to day that Paul did not either already have Genesis 2 in mind when (or even before) he was writing the beginning of Ephesians or that the concept of two being made one was in his mind already concerning both sets of relationships before he thought of using Genesis 2 to add weight to his argument.

This second reason for the connection between the verses also strengthens my argument concerning Genesis as well. Paul immediately states that the mystery of two becoming one speaks of Christ and the church. Yes, Paul is talking about marriage in these verses, but the passage still continues the theme of the church of chapters two and three.

These verses are utterly connected because of Paul's use of the word mystery in verse 32, for in chapters two and three, he names the mystery of the gospel as being that the Gentiles with the Jews are fellow heirs and partakes of the promise in Jesus (Eph 3.4-6).

From a social perspective, it is only logical that Paul would write about reconciliation between husbands and wives as a specific example of his words in the first half of the book. According to the information in the cultural section. The marriage relationship and the expectations for the wife all completely benefitted the husband. Husbands did not love their wives necessarily, marriage was for procreation, not love and the correction of the marriage relationship brings reconciliation. Just and Jews and Gentiles have reconciliation and unity in the church through love, husbands and wives also find untily and reconciliation through love.

Exegesis:

Ephesians 5.15-17

(15Watch, therefore, carefully how you all walk, not as fools but as wise, (16 [and as a result] making the most of the time because the days are evil. (17) Because of this, do not be foolish, but understand the will of God.

(15) Verse fifteen begins with a command, ß?epete, followed by ???. BDAG speaks of ???with an imperative as having intensive and inferential force. Interestingly enough, the previous commands of the preceding section each have a "???" as well. While, Paul might have simply used the particle to merely introduce result, "so, therefore, consequently, accordingly, then..." The seriousness of his content (the reconciliation of chapters 2-3, the tearing down of the walls of hostility) in the previous passage and the passion with which he prayed in 3.14-20 suggests that the sense of "???" in 5.15 and with the previous imperatives is more forceful than merely inferential. Paul connects with ß?epete the adverb, "a???ß??," glossed as precision or exactness, "with focus on careful attention."

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 39.

Such an adverb used directly after "???" and describing ß?epete also seems to necessitate that the force of Paul's statement should be as if it is capitalize. "WATCH, THEREFORE, CAREFULLY how you all walk, not as fools but as wise." Paul is still talking to the church as a whole. Walking is used figuratively to refer to the life and behavior of the believers, both on an individual and corporate level.

His command stands in contrast to the previous verse in which the sleeper is called to wake. Instead of sleeping, during which a person has his eyes closed, ß?epete! Do not sleep, keep you eyes open and walk not as fools, but as wise.

A textual issue exists in verse fifteen concerning whether a???ß?? modifies "watch" or "walk." The case for both externally could go either way. The context of the passage, particularly with the contrast of sleeping and watching in the verses 14-15 suggests that the adverb should go with the imperative, "watch." Hoehner suggests that it ought modify "walk" because ß?epete, as an imperative, is never modified by an adverb in the New Testament.

Hoehner, 690.

Yet that does not necessarily prove that Paul would not use an adverb here in this context to modify ß?epete any more than the fact that certain words are not original simply because they are found only once.

Paul, in these first three verses brings Old Testament themes of Proverbs and wisdom literature to Ephesians. The picture of walking as connected to life and behavior come straight from Proverbs 1-8 with the path of righteousness and the path of folly. He writes of walking, living or behaving not as fools but as wise. Undoubtedly, since he was trained as a Pharisee, he had in his mind these themes from wisdom literature.

The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none,

but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.

NIV, Pr 14:6.

Wisdom, as Paul would have understood it through the Old Testament, had its foundation in the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1.7). His Old Testament background would be translated here to challenge

Wisdom is skill for living righteously. In the same manner, foolish, not only refers to a lack of discernment, but also of unrighteousness, folly, and sin.

Colossians 4.5-6 provides a parallel statement, "Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." (ESV)

But these two verses appear to be one of the examples of how Paul uses the same words in different manners and contexts. The Colossians text focuses specifically and directly upon evangelism and the witness of the Colossian believers. Ephesians 5.15 deals with relationships within the church as can be seen by the following verses. That Paul used these two passages in different manners suggests, not that Paul is not the author, but rather that Paul saw a need in Colossi concerning how the people behaved in public and distinctly different need in Ephesians related to church life. On top of that, Paul clearly held that both realms of life require wise living and conduct.

(16) The manner by which Paul tells his audience to behave and live wisely is expressed in the participle "??a???a??µe???." ??a??????, the lemma of the participle, is often a synonym of ???????, meaning "to buy, purchase, redeem." But ??a??????, on the account of the "??," and then also depending on context, can gain a strengthened meaning, "an 'intensive buying,' i.e., a buying which exhausts the possibilities available."

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey William Bromiley and Gerhard Friedrich, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964-c1976). 1:128.

This verb is not deponent. Instead, Ephesians 5.16 is a perfect example of the indirect usage of the middle voice in which the verb acts upon the subject for his or her own interests. Paul forcefully calls for his readers for their best interests to pay close attention to their behavior by taking advantage of every moment they have because they live in evil days. Days, of course, is figurative, ?µ??a refers to an undefined period of time. The times are evil or evil is done in these days or times or there are evil men in these times. Hoehner writes, "The days are evil because they are controlled by the god of this age (2.2) who opposes God and his kingdom and who will try to prevent any opportunities for the declaration of God's program and purposes."

Hoehner, 694.

The participle is one of manner, which can be seen by the context as a consistant usage in the coming verses. Taking advantage of every moment, is the manner in which Paul calls his readers to walk. Every moment not taken advantage of for living and behaving wisely in righteousness is a moment lost. We cannot turn back the clock. Paul demands his reader's attention, challenging them to watch how they walk, so that they might not regret a moment lost or ill used. The days between Christ's resurrection and His return are too evil to let even a moment slip by without actively examining how we live and behave.

(17) Verse seventeen acts as a bridge guiding Paul's audience from his command in the previous two verses to the following verses, which express exactly what this wise living looks like. "Because of this..." In this text Paul is drawing a conclusion ... from his discussion beginning in verse 15

Hoehner, 695.

The causality of this command is not limited to the simple fact that the days are evil as William Hendriksen believes.

William Hendriksen, Ephesians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1967), 238.

but more so the command is connected to the concept of walking wisely. Paul repeats the same word for foolishness he used before, but now as an adjective. "Do not be foolish..."

In the past, scholars have viewed the present imperative as commanding someone to stop something they have been doing already. But such a meaning is falicious. The present imperative does not mean that the Ephesians have been being foolish and need to stop right now. Such a meaning does not fit the context, particularly since Ephesians is a circular letter. Rather, Paul simply commands the readers to not be foolish.

The BDAG expresses a quite meaningful definition of s????µ?, (translated "understand") "to have an intelligent grasp of something that challenges one’s thinking or practice."

BDAG, 972.

One serious question concerning verse 17 is whether s????µ? ought to be in the imperative, as in the UBS4/NA27. The NA27's textual apparatus defends their reading with the powerful external evidence of P46 ? A B P 0278 33 81 1739 pc. In contrast, D2 (D* F G) 1881 M latt syh support the reading of a participle form of s????µ?. The manuscript support for the imperative reading is far superior from an external standpoint, but the NET Bible argues for a participial reading, pointing out that the participle is by far the more difficult reading of the two. They also note that if Paul sought to imply a second imperative, "do not be foolish, but be wise..." then, "this verse affords a certain symmetry to the author’s thought in vv. 15–21: There are three main sections (vv. 15–16, v. 17, vv. 18–21), each of which provides a negative injunction, followed by a positive injunction, followed by a present adverbial participle. If s???ete (suniete) is original, this symmetry is lost."

Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Biblical Studies Press, 2006; 2006). Eph 5:17.

Yet in contrast to the NET, it must be noted that the imperative instead of the participle perhaps could be viewed as the more difficult reading in that then the structure of verse 17 lacks the participial structure of the rest of the book and also, according to Hoehner, the participial reading suffers in its geneological relationships to other manuscripts. He writes, "With reservation the first reading is preferred."

Hoehner, 697.

But either way, the force of the sentence stays the same. Either there is a implied command to be wise by understanding the will of God or the command, "understand the will of God" is place as an antithesis to being foolish, suggesting that understanding God's will is wisdom.

But what is God's will? So often God's will is discussed in vague terms of someone trying to determine what to do with his life. Understanding how Paul uses the word, "will" (????µa) is necessary for comprehending the verse. How can we understand the will of God, if we do not know what Paul's talking about. "????µa" is used seven times in Ephesians. Of those seven times, contextually, two of those uses give no help, one referring to Paul's apostleship being God's will (1.1) and the other speaking of the wills or desires of the flesh as related to formerly being children of wrath (2.3). The other five, on the other hand, do greatly help in comprehending Paul's intend of the word, "????µa" because they all speak of "????µa" in relationship with God, that is, God's will, or in our case, "the will of the Lord." God's will in Ephesians is connected to predestination for adoption (1.5, 11); the unification of all things, in heaven and earth, in Him (1.9); the behavior of believers in their day to day life and relationships (5.17); and finally, slaves obeying their earthly masters (6.6). Are these five references in any way connected? Do they carry any sort of general theme regarding God's will. I would argue firmly, yes. As can be seen in so many other of Paul's letters. Paul's introductory prayers of thanksgiving consistantly introduce themes which occur through the body of the letter. The occurances of 1.5,9,11 have a sort of chiastic structure to them. Though Paul likely did not intended such a structure, the concept of predestination according to God's will is in 1.5 and 1.11 and then Paul defines the end eschalogical result of that predestination in 1.9. Thus the reason for predestination and adoption (1.5, 11) is the unification of all creation in Him. And if chapters 4-6 are (as is agreed upon by the the vast majority of the scholarly community) the practical outworkings of the doctrine of 1-3 and 1.9-10 gives the only explicit definition of God's will in the book of Ephesians, it only seems logical that 5.17 should be read through the filter of 1.9-10. And even more so if the context of 5.15-33 is one of reconciliation and unity through love, as discussed above.

Danker's definition "s????µ?" fits this context perfectly, for the Lord's will always challenges our thinking and practice. Considering the transformative, reconciling nature of Ephesians as a whole compared to the falleness of the world, a better word than "s????µ?" could not be found. God's will for the Ephesians and God's desires, plans and intentionsfor all believers challenges our thinking, stretches our understanding of relationships with others. Christ by His blood, "has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" and unites, "all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth."

ESV, Eph 2:14.

Verses 15-16 make up one sentence and seventeen is another sentence. Together, these sentences act as the beginnings of a transition under the final pe??pate?te of the book. The two sentences of the section both connect directly to wisdom and also each contain adverbial participles of result. Watching how we walk results in taking advantage of each moment. Being not foolish, but wise results in understanding God. The second flows out of the first. The believer cannot be wise until he is watching how he walks. And from that watching, which leads to being wise, the believer, as a result, understands the will of God, that is, the uniting of everything in Him, both in heaven and on earth. And specifically for the next section, "That wisdom comes to expression especially in wise use of time, in heartfelt worship and thanksgiving, and in mutual respect and submission."

D. A. Carson, New Bible Commentary : 21st Century Edition, 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994). Eph 5:15.

(18) Namely, do not become drunk with wine, in which there is reckless abandon, but be filled with the Spirit, (19) speaking to each other with Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and playing with your heart to the Lord, (20) giving thanks at all time for everything in the name of God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, (21) submitting to one another in reverence to Christ: (22) wives to your own husbands as to the Lord, Jesus Christ. (23) Because the husband is the head of the wife also as Christ, the head of the church, himself being the body's savior. (24) But as the church submits to Christ in the same way the wives also to husbands in everything.

These next verses prove to be the greatest challenge for dividing into sections. Most English Bibles end a sentence and paragraph at 21, but such a division does not make sense because of the lack of verb in verse 22. Other "liberal" Bibles, such as the TNIV, NEB, RSV, and the NRSV all place the the paragraph ending at verse 20, relating verse 21 to the next group of clauses. But this division does no justice to the text either because the verb of verse 21 is a participle that connects all the way back to the main verb of the positive command of verse eighteen, "Be filled with the Spirit." The best way to represent the syntax of the entire passage to group all of them together with the paragraph not ending until verse thirty-three. The organizational structure of the verse used for this exegesis will follow clause by clause. For the sake of simplicity verses 18-21 are examined first, not because of the division between passages, but rather because of the shift in structural syntax, verse 21 being the last of the participles of which Paul writes concerning being filled with the Spirit.

(18) Namely, do not become drunk with wine, in which there is reckless abandon, but be filled with the Spirit,

With verse eighteen comes Paul's next set of negative and positive commands. These two continue to build upon the previous imperatives as has been the case through the chapter. The ?a? ?f the first clause acts in an explicative manner, "for the purpose of explaining what goes before it." i.e., a word or clause is connected by means of ?a? w. another word or clause, for the purpose of explaining what goes before it."

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 495.

For clarity then, the translation says, "namely." This ?a? also is connective for both the postive and negative commands of verse 18. It connects the negative command to the negative command of the previous statement and the positive command to the previous positive command concerning understanding the will of God.

Do not be foolish But understand the will of God

Do not become drunk with wine But be filled with the Spirit

An important exegetical question with the first of these clauses is whether being drunk with wine is something that Paul's recipients have been doing and need to stop or whether Paul is commanding to avoid that course of action.

A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Logos, 1919; 2006). 854.

Contextually, there is no reason to believe that the Ephesians have been becoming drunk with wine. Instead, it is quite likely that Paul is continuing with the strain of wisdom literature. The word for "become drunk," µe??s?es?e, is used in the Proverbs 23.31 in an identical construction, commanding not to become drunk. Just as Proverbs does not speak to those who have been becoming drunk on wine, but instead gives a warning, so does Paul give that same warning against drunkenness which leads to foolish behavior.

"[The term ?s?t?a] is associated with the excess, wastefulness, and riotous living that dissipated the wealth of the prodigal son ... [and] 'is broadly descriptive of moral degeneracy, laxity, and recklessness of conduct.'

Dallas Theological Seminary, Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 157 (Dallas Theological Seminary, 2000; 2002). 157:76.

Paul gives "being filled" as an alterative for intoxication and as a replacement for wine, gives the filling of the Spirit. The intoxication of wine and the filling of the Spirit parallel each other. Wine is an instrumental dative, while "Spirit" acts in the same manner, being the means of filling. Though some hold that "Spirit" in this verse is the content of the filling, "there are no other examples in biblical Greek in which ??+ the dative after p????? indicates content.

Wallace, 375. cf. Porter, Stanley E., Matthew Brook O'Donnell, Jeffrey T. Reed, Randall Tan and OpenText.org. The OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament: Clause Analysis; OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament: Clause Analysis; OpenText.org Clause Analysis. Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2006.

In both conditions of drunkeness and Spirit filling, "the person’s walk is affected—his physical walk in the case of drunkenness and his moral behavior in the other instance."

William MacDonald and Arthur Farstad, Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1995). Eph 5:18.

The Spirit as that replacement is also a controlling power outside the believer. And as that replacement, while drunkenness produced recklessness, the Spirit produces self-control.

Three statements must be made about the filling of the Spirit. First of all, as noted above, this command is directly related to the command to understand the will of God in the previous verse. Secondly, flowing from that as an expression of God's will, the greater context of the book names this commanded filling of the Spirit as a necessity for the unification of all things in Christ.

Only Christ's death and resurrection divides the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile (2.14) and only with the Spirit can believers experience the love together with all the saints that comes from Christ, that they may be filled with all the fullness of God (3.16-19). Gordon Fee calls this clause, "the ultimate imperative in the Pauline corpus: God's people so filled by/with the Spirit's own presence that they come to know God in all his fullness and reflect such in the way they live in relationship to one another and to God himself."

Gordon Fee, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 722.

And lastly, the filling of the Spirit, as an expression of God's will for the unity of believers results in the following verses in the community of faith, in worship and in relationships.

A cultural connection exists that might help explain the sudden reference to drunkenness and provides explanation for the following verses 19-33, that is, the cult of Dionysus. Yet a division exists between scholars concerning the cult. Criticism of such a view comes from several important commentators. A few different arguments against the cult have been put forth. The most common argues that Paul could not be referring to the cult because, though the cult was pervasive across Asia Minor, there is no evidenc that it caused problems in the church cf. Lincoln and O'Brien. Another argument against the view is that Paul has a typical formula for present specific sins. Hoehner writes,

"Some suggest that Paul is possibly referring to their religious background in the cult of Dionysus.... Although this is possible, it is unlikely because Paul does not mention directly that this was their religious practice as he does other places (Eph 2:1-5; 4:17-21; 1 Cor 5:1; 6:9-11; 15-20; Gal 4:1-11)." Hoehner 701.

The other response from commentators against the view is to simply disregard it as Schackenburg does in his commentary.

The problem with the first argument of the possibility of the cult background lies simply in the fact that they all cite Cleon Roger's article, the argument misrepresents Roger's words. He does not say that the Ephesian church was participating in the cult, but simply that "To talk of wine and drinking immediately brought Dionysian expressions in the conversation..."

Dallas Theological Seminary, Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 136 (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1979; 2002). 136:253.

Such a view of believers participating in such activities is to misconstrue the point. The question Rogers asked was not, "Did the church participate in such activities so that Paul needed to rebuke them?" But rather it was, "Was the Dionysian cult so prevasive in the world at the time that the Ephesians would have thought of it?"

The second argument struggles hold its weight as well. Hoehner does not believe that a Dionysian reference in verse 18 fits with Paul's style. But Hoehner fails in his argument as well. The example verses for his argument do not apply. 1 Corinthians and Galatians are letters of a quite different nature than Ephesians in that they are personal letters dealing with personal issues. In contrast, Ephesians is an extremely impersonal letter. Whether one believes Ephesians was written to area churches surrounding Ephesus or written to multiple house churches in Ephesus as Hoehner does, the impersonal nature of the letter cannot be denied. This difference logically explains why Paul's writing concerning cultural issues would vary in Ephesians.

As to the two Ephesians passages he mentions, there are several difference between his cited passages and 5.18. With Ephesians 2.1-5, the issue, again, is the impersonal nature of the letter. In 2.1-5 Paul deals with past sins in general because being dead in one's transgressions and indulging the desires of the flesh and mind are concepts that eagerly apply themselves to the pre-Christian experience of every believer, thus not necessarily dealing with, as Hoehner says, "[the Ephesians'] religious practice."

Ephesians 4.17-21falls into this same category, focusing on general sins that are a part of every Christian's experience. Beyond all of this, these three passages fuction differently within the letter as well. Both 2.1-5 and 4.17-21 function as a part of Paul's argument and explanation for what the believer's life ought to look like now that he is in Christ. Hoehner's arguments if true, deny the rhetorical qualities of the letter as a whole. New Testament letters were cafeully written. Authors put much thought into their words because of the expense. Because of the time between sending and receiving a letter, words were carefully chosen. (Duvall and Hays 230-231).

Ephesians 5.18 function in a different manner. There is no necessity for any of the recipients to be currently participating in the cult of Dionysus or even to have been apart of it in the past. Only what is necessary is that the readers are familiar with the cult for the verse to convery its intended meaning. The reference anticipates Paul's freeing words of love for women in the coming section. In world where husbands did not nessarily love their wives Paul's words in 21-33 express a new safety for the wives of Ephessus. In a sense then, the verse and follow act in the same manner as Hoehner's verses challenging the interpretation. Verse eighteen gives a generality that the audience can recognize as part of their live experience and then in the second clause of the verse and following verses discover the freedom and reconciliation there is for the marriage relationship there is in Christ and his love, where this is a safe and free place for women to live beyond the drunken revery of a pagan cult.

What is striking regarding the cult is that Ernest Best in his ICC volume on Ephesians at first glance appears to reject the possibility of the cult, saying, "Alternatively AE [author of Ephesians] may be thinking of the wider situation of the readers as ex-Gentiles ... in particular that of Dionysuis. AE might then be denying the connection of Christianity with religious drunkenness. Yet if AE had either of these in mind surely he would have made it clearer..."

Ernest Best.,A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark International, 1998) 507.

Even though Best denies the Dionysian cult as an explanation for the introduction of drunkenness, he does reject the cult entirely as he writes later on the verse, "What has led to the association of wine and the Spirit? ... In Acts 2.13 those who speak in tongues are regarded by bystanders as drunk.... drinking is sometimes associated with spiritual exaltation so those who desire the latter turn to the former to produce it (the bacchantes attained ecstasy through wine...)."

Ernest Best.,A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark International, 1998) 509.

I contend that more likely than not, Paul anticipated his audience familiarity with the cult of Dionysus in writing verse 18. And such a perspective is validated more so with an examination of the rhetorical structure of the following voices.

(19) speaking to each other with Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and playing with your heart to the Lord,

(20) giving thanks at all time for everything in the name of God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,

(21) submitting to one another in reverence to Christ:

(22) wives to your own husbands as to the Lord, Jesus Christ.

(23) Because the husband is the head of the wife also as Christ, the head of the church, himself being the body's savior.

(24) But as the church submits to Christ in the same way the wives also to husbands in everything.

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