Ephesians 5:1 Christ's Acts of Love the Christian's Model. I. Christ took our flesh that in it He might go up and down among us; that in it He might be seen by us; that in it He might speak to us, and leave deeds and words which might, in characters of love, be traced in our souls, and there live o... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:2 , EPHESIANS 5:8 I. "Walk in love." Here we have a command founded upon a reason: "Walk in love, as Christ hath loved us." Yes, of all forces love is the most powerful as a force to act upon others. Pure, disinterested love is all but irresistible, all but, not quite; for if it were qu... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:6 Light-hearted Wickedness. I. Trifling with sin is open disobedience to God. No one can say that the directions of our heavenly Father are not very plain on this subject. There is no disguise in His word; there is nothing that can be misunderstood. All through the Bible, like a low, r... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:2 , EPHESIANS 5:8 I. "Walk in love." Here we have a command founded upon a reason: "Walk in love, as Christ hath loved us." Yes, of all forces love is the most powerful as a force to act upon others. Pure, disinterested love is all but irresistible, all but, not quite; for if it were qu... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:9 The Fruit of Light. We ought to read, "The Fruit of Light." It is all about light and darkness, as we see here. "Spirit" has been introduced instead of the word "light." The text should read, "The fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth." I. Christ is the r... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:13 The Light of God. I. Light comes from God. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all; and therefore He wishes to give light to His children. He willeth not that the least of them should be kept in darkness about any matter. Darkness is of the devil; and he who keeps any human s... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:15 Christian Prudence. I. We Christians were never meant to be remiss and insensible; Christ came to redeem and renew us in every legitimate faculty and every salutary use of it. It was never intended that the world should go onward in improvement and the Church should stand still. The... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:16 I. "The days are evil." They are felt to be so (1) on this account, for one thing: that they are subject to so many things which are out of men's power, independent of their will and control. They are liable to have so many untoward things happening to them, which no one can prevent... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:16 Redeeming the Time. I. The words of the text in the English version have become proverbial, "Redeeming the time"; but the words of the original, although they would hardly bear to be differently translated, are even more expressive: buying up the opportunity; not missing anything of... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:17 Christian Discernment of God's Will. I. The great thing after which an intelligent Christian should strive as his daily guide in life is, not a diplomatic reference to the literal text of Scripture, still less to this or that tenet or watchword of a party or system, but a large measu... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:18 Christianity and Temperance. St. Paul here contrasts two kinds of excitement. God does not love the sort of languid and lazy being which nothing stirs, and nothing stimulates. Excitement has its place in the Christian system. That flow and rush of the natural spirits which is so dea... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:20 I. The duty of giving thanks is that duty which of all others may be declared natural to man, and which can be declined by none but those whose dispositions almost prove themselves not human. Men are capable of gratitude and well accustomed to give it expression, but, through some my... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:22 On Marriage. I. Consider how the earthly and the heavenly views of Christian marriage which the Apostle presents to us are thoroughly one, and cannot be separated. It was an old delusion that the Christian who wished to give himself up to the influences of the Spirit, to obtain the s... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:25 I. The love of Christ. None of us, it is truly said, is a stranger to this master emotion of the human soul. Flowing through the earth like streams amid desert sands, shining in life's darkest nights like stars in a wintry sky, throwing its bright bow over every cloud of fortune, thi... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 5:32 Sacramental Mysteries. I. The question of baptismal grace when it is conferred, or the conditions upon which it is conferred at all; the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are really and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper; the nature of that uni... [ Continue Reading ]