Ephesians 5:15

15. For a life according to this ideal St Paul feels that two qualities are pre-eminently necessary, ‘moral thoughtfulness’ and spiritual enthusiasm overflowing at once in thankfulness to God and in disciplined subordination. He contrasts it with the recklessness and drunken dissipation of the society by which they were surrounded.

Βλέπετε οὖν�. Here, as in 2 Corinthians 7:1, we have a clear expression of the good after which the Pharisees were striving. St Paul’s training κατὰ� (Acts 22:3; cf. Acts 26:5) had not been all thrown away. Only it is important to notice the change in emphasis produced by the change in order according to the true text. St Paul does not require men ‘to walk circumspectly.’ That suggests a life in the fetters of an external scrupulosity. He bids them keep a close watch on the principles by which they are regulating their lives. Contrast the description of modern practice in Westcott’s Disciplined Life, p. 2, ‘We trust to an uncultivated notion of duty for an improvised solution of unforeseen difficulties.’

μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι�ʼ ὡς σοφοί. Cf. the stress on σοφία in Ephesians 1:8; Ephesians 1:17.