Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Ephesians 5:1-20, Children of light, and wine or the Spirit
Paul calls believers to imitate God, to have nothing to do with sexual immorality, coarse joking or deeds done in the dark, and, instead of getting drunk on wine, to be filled with the Spirit, singing and giving thanks for everything.
Ephesians 5:1-20, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul calls the believers to copy God as his loved children and to live in love, the way Christ gave himself for them. Sexual sin, greed and dirty talk have no place among them, because they have moved out of darkness into light and should expose what is done in the dark. He sets getting drunk against being filled by the Spirit, which shows itself in singing together and thanking God for everything.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sexual-morality-in-greek-cities\/","n":"Sex, wine and Greek city ways","s":"Greek and Roman men were expected to have sex outside marriage, with slaves or prostitutes, and the law allowed it. Jews and Christians called all of it porneia, sexual immorality; drunkenness at banquets and in taverns went with it, and the port of Corinth had an old name for it.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/kingdom-of-god\/","n":"God's kingdom","s":"Kingdom meant God's reign, God becoming king in fact. It was the good news Isaiah promised, and in Jesus' day it was also a slogan.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/mystery-cults\/","n":"The mystery cults","s":"Cults that a person entered by a secret initiation, often held at night. Some promised freedom from Fate, some had a name for drunken or immoral rites, and Rome distrusted them as foreign.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/fate-and-the-stars\/","n":"Fate and the stars","s":"Most people in Paul's world believed their lives were ruled by Fate, worked out through the stars, which many took to be heavenly beings. Few thought there was any escape, and cults that promised one drew followers.","r":""}
Sexual humor ran through Greek entertainment, and an inn wall at Pompeii could picture the prostitutes inside with their prices (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener); the cultural backgrounds article on prostitution adds that most were slaves, many of them babies rescued from the rubbish heaps where infants were abandoned. Refusing the city's civic cults would get believers branded antisocial, as Jews were (Keener and his notes). Some mystery cults held night initiations and had immoral reputations (Keener and his notes; Wright). The saying of 5:14 is read as a paraphrase of Isaiah 60:1 or Daniel 12:2 (Keener), a combined allusion to Isaiah (the ESV Study Bible), or an early Christian song, which Wright thinks almost certain. Drunkenness was common at rich banquets and in poor taverns, and some linked it with possession by Dionysus, god of wine; Keener and Arnold see Dionysian revelry as a likely background, though Keener adds that not every drunkard was thought to be possessed. Only about fifty ancient musical scores survive, mostly in fragments (Wright), and Spirit songs may have been spontaneous (Keener). Only Jews and some Stoics urged thanks for everything (Keener and his notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Ephesians 4:32-5:2, 5:3-6, 5:7, 5:8-13, 5:14, 5:18, 5:19 and 5:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Ephesians 5:4, 5:7, 5:8, 5:11, 5:18 and 5:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Prostitution and Sexual Immorality (1 Corinthians 6:12-20)
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Ephesians 5:14
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Ephesians 5:3-10 and 5:11-20
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 8, The Spirit and the Gifts, with its note
