Ephesians: Unity in Submission
MC Study Guide – Ephesians 5:15-21
Read the Passage
15Look
carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16making the best use of
your time, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand
what the will of the Lord is. 18And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery,
but be filled with the Spirit, 19addresing one another in Psalms, and hymns, and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20giving
thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, 21submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Learn About the Passage
“Make the Best Use of Your Time”:
It is a fact of life, a fact of society, a fact of human nature, that for every generation in every
century humanity has overachieved in finding new and creative means of wasting time.
However, Paul could scarcely have imagined the sheer ingenuity of the 21st century man to
dispense with wisdom and throw away the time given to him. One of the consequences of
civilization—and Paul, living in the midst of one of the first great civilizations would certainly
have understood this—is that life becomes simpler as infrastructure grows and cities thrive.
Suddenly, work gives way to leisure time as goods and services become cheaper and more
convenient.
“Idle hands,” it has been said, “are the devil’s playthings.” There may be real truth to that; and
this was certainly evident in the Roman world, as it is evident now. In those days free time
within the cities gave ready way to the horrors of the coliseum, murder for amusement,
entertainment grounded in every form of debauchery. In these days, we may glory in our
“modernity”, in our so-called “enlightenment”, but what have we really discovered but newer,
greater, and shinier means of wasting time?
Modern media, particularly, has had no small amount of success in preventing us from “making
the best use of the time,” by funneling our thoughts and expectations to whatever narrow
version of reality may be en vogue on any given day. “Thus,” writes Muggeridge, “the effect of
the media at all levels is to draw people away from reality, which means away from Christ, and
into fantasy, whether it be at the lowest possible level, in appeals to our cupidity, our vanity, our
carnality in overtly pornographic publications and spectacles, or, in more sophisticated terms,
by displaying in words or in pictures, in one context or another, the degeneracy and depravity,
the divorcement from any concept of good and evil, the leaning towards perversion and violence
and the sheer chaos of a society that has lost its bearings, and so is materially, morally and
spiritually, adrift” (Looking Through the Eye, Sermon delivered at the 1976 London Lectures in
Contemporary Christianity).
Avoiding foolishness, then, is to wear a sort of blinders as we walk through this world; to see, to
witness, to understand the world around us, but to guard our time as we would guard our
beloved. We are to work for the sake of the Gospel rather than to satiate our desires; we are to
avoid foolishness by understanding the will of the Lord. “In the world but not of the world,”
seems entirely prescient as we navigate this foolishness.
“Do Not Get Drunk on Wine”:
Paul now addresses the sin of drunkenness, but we should never fool ourselves into believing
that this is the only, or even the primary sin he is addressing. It is merely the sin that most
clearly fits the imagery; it is, as it were, the perfect antithesis of the Spirit. Aristotle famously
declared that “nature abhors a vacuum”. In other words, nothing empty will stay empty for long-something always rushes in to fill any void. Every hole dug by a child in the sand will soon
enough be filled with the oncoming tide. The Soul is no different; there is a craving, an urge
within every human being for what in our society has aptly been called “fulfillment.” There is a
longing that simply cannot go unchecked. This is the root of all idolatry, and, in fact, all turning
away from God, for the untamed heart will always long for something; it will find its chosen
activity, its chosen person, its chosen status, its chosen addiction, and to this thing it will cling,
in sheer stark terror of being left empty, for the soul is constantly craving, constantly desiring,
constantly wanting more.
But this longing – this addiction – is a very human thing. And in fact it’s not a terrible thing in
and of itself--it’s actually how we were designed--but let’s never forget that this constant longing
for fulfillment and meaning has led to more destruction than every human war combined. It has
destroyed souls and led billions into depravity, poverty, drunkenness and addiction.
But, properly maintained, properly trained, properly cultivated, it is the longing of the soul that
brings us life (and not just life, but as Christ maintained, life “abundant”, John 10:10). Thus,
because of the unique nature of the soul, we as Christians are allowed the unique pleasure of
both having found Christ and of still wanting to find Him more; of loving Him and of desiring
only to love Him more. We’ve filled our souls with the Holy Spirit and only find ourselves
desperately wanting to be fuller still. A.W. Tozer wrote that, “Hymnody (the body of classic
hymns) is sweet with the longing after God, the God whom, while the singer seeks, he knows he
has already found. ‘His track I see and I’ll pursue,’ sang our fathers only a short generation ago,
but that song is heard no more in the great congregation. How tragic that we in this dark day
have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial
act of ‘accepting’ Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not
expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in
the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him.”
(The Pursuit of God, p. 8).
That is the glory of being filled with the Spirit! It is not a one-time thing! It is a thing that
happens, and yet which we can still desire more! It is an addiction, in the truest sense of the
word, but an addiction that brings joy rather than pain! An addiction that brings true, deep
satisfaction rather than bitter, desperate craving. An addiction that lifts up everyone around you
rather than spreading pain and despair.
Be Filled with the Spirit:
But now imagine, as Paul so well understands from personal experience, the alternative to all of
this. Someone who does not have Christ already may not be seeking Him, but that doesn’t meant
that he does not seek to fill that void--it only means that he will continue to seek that worldly
“fulfillment”, even having found what he is seeking. Human nature, as designed by God, means
that the drunkard may have wine but only desire more, even in the midst of a bottle; it means to
stagger, drunk and not yet finished with the current bottle, in the quest for another. It is the
perpetual conquest of the womanizer, the insatiable hunger for control of the power-mad. The
very nature of addiction is that one may have and yet want more. The present largesse is simply
not enough. More needles, more pills, more money, more women.
There is something to be said for the admittedly trite and overused phrase “addicted to Christ.”
Only in Christ has man’s addictive nature finally found something worth this endless searching.
Only in wanting to love and to imitate Christ more have we found something that is truly worth
losing all in order to maintain. No one can reasonably argue that an addiction to alcohol, to
drugs, to sex, to money, is worth the price. Has any recovering addict ever longed to return to
sleeping in the gutter, needles in his arm? But for Christ we are asked to give all, to forfeit all, to
have and to seek further, and we find the tremendous truth that anyone who has followed this
path, no matter how much they have lost, will eagerly testify that not a moment of their life was
wasted in the pursuit.
And it is this sort of “Spiritual drunkenness” that Paul reminds us of in verses 19-21:
19addressing one another in Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody to the Lord with your heart, 20giving thanks always and for everything to God the
Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21submitting to one another out of reverence for
Christ.”
While we’re at it, let’s look at a couple other passages. Here’s Paul writing to the Colossian
church:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all
wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to
God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3:16-17)
And here’s Paul writing to the Galatian church:
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,
sorcery,
enmity,
strife,
jealousy,
fits
of
anger,
rivalries,
dissensions,
divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against
such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with
its passions and desires. (Gal. 5:19-24)
Look, to someone like me, all of this sounds a bit silly at first. I guarantee that I’ve never
addressed any of you with a Psalm, hymn, or spiritual song. I’ve never even addressed my wife
with these things. Honestly, I’d rather just say hello.
But Paul is speaking of something deeper - he’s telling us that instead of being drunk on wine,
instead of falling over ourselves in bars after we’ve had too much to drink or making absolute
fools of ourselves or getting into fights with other drunks (all things I’ve personally witnessed
many times), our demeanor should reflect our fullness of the Spirit. So, just like there are
“happy” drunks and “angry” drunks, I think that we all look a bit different when we are filled
with the Spirit. Some will respond in song, some in prayer, some in encouragement….
Wine, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, whatever it is that we fill ourselves with, is controlling. That’s the
point! These are things that steal away our identies and control us from within by the power of
addiction. But being filled with the Spirit – just look at the list of the fruit of the Spirit that I just
listed – being filled with the Spirit means that we can finally be ourselves in truth! It allows us to
finally exercise the things we were made for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness – and
what’s the last one? Self-control! Being filled with the Spirit finally enables us to be free of the
addictions and desires that control us.
So what’s the takeaway? Be filled with the Spirit! What does that look like? It looks like
examining your life, top to bottom, and asking yourself what you are being filled with. What
addictions have you failed to root up? What desires do you still harbor that are keeping you
from fully embracing the Spirit in your life? Take advantage of a community of like-minded
believers. Don’t stay at home and insulate yourself in your home - if we are going to be greeting
each other in the Spirit, it stands to reason that we will do that when we’re together.
Discuss the Passage

How can you put this passage into your own words?

What do you think is Paul’s definition of wisdom in this passage?

What do you think is the consequence of not using your time wisely? Why is this so
important to Paul? What is the alternative to “wasted” time? What does it look like to
make the best use of your time?

Why do you think Paul makes special note of the sin of being “drunk with wine”? What
sorts of sins is Paul pointing to here? What does Paul see as the alternative to this sin?

What is the danger of rooting out a sin, such as procrastination or drunkenness, without
having something else with which to fill the void?

Can you relate to Paul’s description of a “Spirit-filled” life? Why or why not? How do you
think this passage should speak to the Church?
Apply the Passage
Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for
you have been called by God. (Ephesians 4:1 NLT)
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise. (Ephesians 5:15 ESV)
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every
good work. (2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV)

How can these things be walked out?

Read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (above).

How is this passage profitable for teaching?
 What do we learn about God from this passage? What can we learn about
ourselves?

How is this passage profitable for reproof?
 Where do you see yourself in this passage? What sorts of sins do you see
in your life that may be preventing you from being filled with the Spirit?

How is this passage profitable for correction?
 How can we use this passage to take real and substantial steps to remove
sin from our lives and genuinely live “in the Spirit”?

How is this passage profitable for training in righteousness?
 How can we develop rhythms and habits in our walks in order to make
this passage a reality in our lives?