Ephesians 5:18

καὶ μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ. From LXX. of Proverbs 23:31. Drunkenness was one of the chief dangers threatening Christian life in heathen surroundings. Warnings against it are not prominent in the Gospels (Luke 21:34; of. Matthew 24:49 only, not in Mark 7:21 f. nor in Revelation 21:8). In St Paul references appear in every group, 1 Thessalonians 5:7; 1 Corinthians 6:10; Galatians 5:21; Romans 13:13; cf. 1 Peter 4:3. Even in Christian circles its presence was not unknown. Cf. 1 Corinthians 11:21; 1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 3:8; 1 Timothy 3:11; Titus 2:2 f.

ἐν ᾦ ἐστὶν�. Titus 1:6; 1 Peter 4:4; of. Luke 15:13; 2Ma 6:4. A term clearly implying the gravest moral censure. Cf. Arist. Eth. Nic. IV. 1 τοὺς�.

ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι. Cf. Ephesians 3:19. See Additional Note on πλήρωμα. Here the antithesis to drunkenness is supplied not by sobriety, which in itself is by no means a merely negative conception (cf. 1 Peter 1:13; 1 Peter 4:7), but by a condition of spiritual, not necessarily emotional, exaltation, all the faculties of our nature being raised to their highest power by the power of the Spirit—as they are artificially and for a time by wine. ἐν πνεύματι. On the ‘dynamic’ force of this phrase, see on Ephesians 2:18.