The Word Made Fresh
1Try to imitate God as children imitate their parents. 2Live with love, for Christ loved you and gave himself up for you as a fragrant offering sacrificed to God.
3Sexual sins and other filthiness and greed should never be seen among you. This is not proper conduct for God’s people. 4Obscenity, silliness, and dirty language is completely out of bounds. Instead, there should be gratitude. 5You can be sure that people who do such things have no part in God, or in Christ’s kingdom.
6Don’t be deceived by meaningless claims; God is angry towards those who disobey. 7So, don’t associate with such people. 8You used to live in darkness; now you live in the light of the Lord. Live, then, as children of the light, 9because the light produces that which is good and right and true. 10Learn what pleases the Lord. 11Don’t participate in the worthless deeds done in darkness. Expose them! 12It is shameful to even mention what some people will do secretly. 13But things that are exposed to the light become visible, 14because everything can be seen in the light. That is why it is said, “Awake, sleeper! Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light!”
15So take care how you live. Don’t live as clueless people, but as wise ones. 16Make the most of the time you have because the days can bring evil. 17Don’t be fools; understand what God wants. 18Don’t drink wine until you’re drunk. That is degenerate. But be filled with the Spirit 19when you sing psalms and hymns and make melodies for the Lord from your hearts. 20Always give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
21Be servants to one another out of your reverence for Christ. 22Wives, serve your husbands as you serve the Lord, 23because the husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the church, and its savior. 24Just as the church serves Christ, wives ought to be the same to their husbands.
25Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for her 26so that she would be holy, cleansed by the word, washed by the water. 27That is how the church should be given to Christ in splendor, with no sign of a wrinkle nor any sign of neglect, which makes the church holy and without shortcomings. 28Husbands should love their wives in the same way and care for them as they care for themselves. 29No one hates his own body, but instead feeds it and cares for it just as Christ cares for the church. 30We are part of the body of Christ. 31“This is why a man will leave his parents and join his wife so that the two become one.” 32I am applying this great mystery to the church. 33But each man should love his wife as he loves himself, and each wife should respect her husband.
Commentary
1-2: To love as Christ loved means to give yourself up for the other. That is what Christ did for us, and that is what the followers of Christ should do for each other.
3-5: Still, Paul finds it necessary to list forbidden behaviors which would seem to be obviously contrary to the life God has called us to live.
6-14: The use of light and darkness as metaphors to refer to life with and without a covenant relationship with God is common throughout the New Testament.
15-20: Live carefully, he tells them. Focus on God’s will. Be inebriated by worship, not by wine.
21-24: Paul’s advice to wives, which has spawned so much controversy in recent times, reflects the culture in which he lived. Rather than interpret his words out of contemporary sensibilities, remember that his emphasis on submission is grounded in the idea of the lordship of Christ over all of us.
25-33: Husbands, for their part, are to give themselves up for their wives as Christ gave himself up for the church. In other words, love her as if you are willing to die for her. Something to think about.
Takeaway
So, treat one another as you wish to be treated. It’s that simple.