But fornication and all uncleanness or unbridled lust, let it not be even named among you, as it becomes saints;
Paul has just held up Christ's self-giving love as the pattern for the believer's walk. He turns straight to the ugliest sins of the body and of money. Why must these sins not merely be avoided, but never even mentioned?
Chapter 5 opens with a call to copy God and to love as Christ loved. Then comes a guard. Close warmth among believers carries its own danger.
Still, the sweeter and more blessed it is, the closer it stands to evil — unless divine power and self-judgment keep it. It brings people together. It awakens spiritual affections. But what begins in the Spirit may end in corruption of the flesh, as we see at Corinth... These lusts of the flesh were not merely forbidden; they were not even to be named. They were God's holy ones, saints; and the question now was what is fitting for saints, not merely for men.
The warning does not call for a joyless life.
There is danger even among the saints of God. The devil can come in and turn love between believers into a snare. He does this not only when we allow open evil to break out, but through the unjudged leaning towards it... The Lord in no way forbids the happy cheerfulness which He loves in His saints. He does not call us to be monks. That is man's way of keeping the flesh under restraint, and only another form of self. We may have self in a legal form and self in a lax form. Under any form it is not Christ, and the only thing which God values now is Christ.
The ban reaches past behaviour to conversation, and for a reason.
The things listed in verse 3 appeal to instincts rooted deep in man's fallen nature. We do well to avoid the things themselves, and also the contamination that comes from thinking about them. We cannot talk about them without thinking of them, even if we condemn them in our talking. Therefore let us not talk about them.
It also settles how sin should be confessed in public:
The apostle Paul's confession in 1 Timothy 1:13 is a model. It is not "sharing" but a confession meant to praise the grace of God in reaching such a sinner as he was. Notice that his confession does not go into indecent details. He speaks only of how he opposed God — his blasphemy against God's truth and the harm he did to His people. As for confessing sexual matters in public, Scripture emphatically forbids this.
Silence is not softness. Talking about these sins lightly makes them look small. Older translations render the ESV's "sexual immorality" as "fornication":
This means that we should not mention these things frivolously and so make little of them... The Bible does not use the word fornication only for prostitution. It covers all sexual relations outside marriage — even where the couple mean to marry, and even if it happens only once.
The third word in the verse looks out of place beside the first two. The Greek word is pleonexia, "to have more":
It is not limited to money, and it is often linked with open wickedness. The word means "desiring more than is necessary," and so "reaching out to grab." That is why it is applied to the lusts of the flesh. It is declared to be idolatry (Col. 3:5).
That is why greed and immorality keep appearing side by side:
Elsewhere (Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5), and especially in the first passage, covetousness and fornication are spoken of together. Fornication really springs out of covetousness, as the tenth commandment had already taught.
The measure is not public decency but identity. The order matters: the walk flows from what believers already are.
Since believers are "called saints" (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2), their ways should be such as are suitable for saints... They are not called to become saints by a holy walk. They are urged to a holy walk because God's calling has already made them saints... How unfit it is for people set apart like this to walk in uncleanness! And how wrong for followers of Him who was rich, and became poor for our sakes, to be clutching at the riches of this world!
The title itself carries the duty. A saint is "one set apart for God," and Scripture assumes "there is a line of conduct that is fitting for saints" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
- Position first. The verse follows the call to walk in love as Christ loved us. Holiness here answers grace already received; it does not earn it.
- Standard second. You do not become a saint by clean living. You live as what God has already called you.
- Scope third. Covetousness stands beside immorality. Both grasp for more than God has given, and Scripture calls that greed idolatry.
- Speech fourth. These sins must leave our talk, not just our conduct. We cannot discuss them without dwelling on them, so keep the details out of public.
- Balance last. Silence about filth is not gloom. The Lord loves cheerfulness in His people. Monk-like rules only dress up self; the one thing God values now is Christ.
and filthiness and foolish talking, or jesting, which are not convenient; but rather thanksgiving.
Paul has just warned against immorality and greed. Now he turns to how God's people talk. This verse is not about crimes but about conversation — dirty talk, silly talk, and clever talk. It does not only ban them. It names a replacement.
"Out of place" is a word about fitness. Older translations read "not convenient." One writer explains it and ties the whole demand back to who believers already are:
They are not called to become saints by a holy walk. They are urged to a holy walk because they are saints through God's calling. The apostle says these things "are not convenient" — that is, not suitable. … It is not only in deed, but in word, that believers are to act in a way that suits saints.
The three words in this verse are milder than the sins listed just before them. That is exactly the point — the warning follows the evil into its socially acceptable disguise, and then supplies its opposite:
He does not limit his warning to unrestrained immorality, or to the greedy desire for whatever pleases man. He extends it to unholy language too, whether openly shameful or hidden under a veil of refinement… Here again he brings in not only the absence of what is improper in the Christian, but the positive side as well: the heart turns to God's goodness, and that breaks out in thanksgiving.
At first glance the verse sounds like a ban on laughter. Commentators say it is not:
The Lord in no way forbids the happy cheerfulness which He loves in His saints. He does not call us to be monks, which is man's way of keeping the flesh under restraint, and only another form of self. Self can take a strict, rule-keeping form, and self can take a loose form. In any form it is not Christ, and the only thing God values now is Christ.
The test is a Person, not a rule:
In the presence of Christ we will find joking unsuitable. This does not mean that the one who walks in the light of God's face is unhappy. No cloud hangs over the joy of the person who is in God's presence. But such a Christian feels which things do not suit someone called to imitate God.
One writer explains why even "foolish talk" is banned. The mouth drags the mind with it, even when the speaker means to condemn:
Things like those listed in verse 3 appeal to instincts deeply rooted in man's fallen nature. We do well to avoid the things themselves, and also the stain that comes from thinking about them. We cannot talk about them without thinking of them, even if we condemn them as we talk. So let us not talk about them… A Christian is neither a fool nor a jester, so let us not appear as either in our conversation.
The hardest item to give up is the one everyone admires, and dropping it has a cost:
We will soon find that refusing to join in foolish talking and jesting will bring plenty of scorn, and make us a spectacle. A quick wit or a clever reply is a natural ornament! But harmless as it may seem to us, there is very grave danger of defilement lurking here.
The verse ends with an exchange, not a vacuum:
Scripture is positive as well as negative; if folly is not to flow from our lips, giving of thanks should. Happy occupation! The heart is so satisfied with divine grace, and so taken up with Christ, that out of its abundance thanksgiving wells up to Him.
The trade is not joy for gloom. It is one kind of happiness for another:
Nothing is truly pleasant to the Spirit but Christ. In a saint, joy in the Holy Spirit should take the place of the thoughtless merriment that is natural to us. We are to trade the mirth that so often leaves a sting for that pure and precious gladness in which God Himself has a part.
Guarding the lips is not enough. Speech only reports what is already in the heart:
What is the remedy? Here it is — a heart filled with the peace of Christ, the word of Christ, Christ Himself. Nothing else will do. We must begin with the heart. Where the heart is fully occupied with heavenly things, we will make very short work of every attempt at evil speaking, foolish talking and jesting.
- Fitting — "Out of place" means unsuitable. The standard is not a rule list but what suits people God has already called saints.
- Refined — The warning reaches past open filth to polished, witty forms of the same evil.
- Free — Cheerfulness is not banned. Life in God's presence is happy, and harsh self-denial is only self in another form.
- Costly — A quick wit is an ornament people admire. Laying it down brings scorn; keeping it risks defilement.
- Exchanged — Thanksgiving takes the empty place. It starts in a heart occupied with Christ, not in guarded lips.
For this ye are [well] informed of, knowing that no fornicator, or unclean person, or person of unbridled lust, who is an idolater, has inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and God.
Paul names impurity and greed, and then calls greed idolatry. That raises two hard questions. Why is wanting more treated as worship? And what does it mean to have no inheritance in the kingdom?
Two different Greek words for knowing stand side by side in the opening phrase. One writer explains what each one adds.
In Ephesians 5:5 the true reading brings both Greek words for knowing together: iste (from oida) and ginoskontes. Knowledge gained from outside had passed into inward, conscious knowledge. It was what they were well aware of, and knew. In the way the words are used, that process could not run the other way.
The word covers something far more ordinary than theft — which is exactly what makes it dangerous.
Covetousness involves no dishonesty. It is not even hard or sharp dealing. It is no more than the desire for more — the very spring of modern effort, the drive to better yourself that everyone is urged to have, from the workman to the millionaire. So the creature becomes the object, not God; and so covetousness is called idolatry. It is man looking down, not up in dependence on God.
Why does Paul call a greedy person an idolater? One writer answers by defining what an idol is.
You do not need to bow down to a piece of wood or stone to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol. Giving the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who gives it is an idolater… What is covetousness? It is either a desire to get more, or the love of what we have… But whether it is the desire to grasp or the desire to hoard, either way it is idolatry.
It is easy to read a list of sins as a description of other people. One writer turns the list back on the readers.
These are things for use. They are exhortations, not merely to apply to other people, to measure them by, but to take home to ourselves. They are for saints, not for the world. No doubt we find the evil warned against in the world. Our hearts ought to feel for those who will have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. But remember that the main purpose of the Holy Spirit was to warn and guard the saints themselves.
Some hear such a warning as a threat to the freeness of forgiveness. One writer answers by pointing to God's unchanging nature.
It is most important to remember this. Let sovereign grace do all it will. Let it reach the worst. Let it cleanse the most defiled. Still God's moral ways do not bend. His nature does not change. He hates and can never tolerate wickedness. His love may find — and has found — a glorious solution to that difficulty in the cross of Christ. But God and sin can never walk or live together.
Does this verse put a believer's place in doubt? One writer answers by separating standing from conduct.
The believer is a joint-heir with Christ, for in Him "we have obtained an inheritance." But to have a part in the kingdom of Christ and of God, our character must suit it. Seen in Christ, we are already fit to share the inheritance of the saints in light. Here, though, the question is not so much one of standing as of conduct.
Another writer draws the line between a fall and a way of life:
A child of God may fall and commit some of these things, but no true believer will continue to live in them.
This verse looks ahead. It says both what such people will miss and what the kingdom will be like.
Those marked by uncleanness, covetousness and idolatry will not only miss the blessings of the coming kingdom of Christ and of God. Being disobedient to the gospel, they will also come under the wrath of God. Unlike this present evil world, the kingdom of God will be a place where love rules and lust is shut out. What will be true of the coming kingdom should mark the family of God today.
- Know it. Paul points to what the readers already know. Facts they were taught have become inward certainty.
- Name it. Covetousness is the desire for more. It needs no dishonesty, so it passes for healthy ambition.
- Face it. Whatever commands the heart is an idol. Grasping or hoarding, greed puts something in God's place.
- Own it. The warning is written to believers to guard them, not handed to them as a measuring stick for the world.
- Match it. Grace has not changed God's nature. The kingdom is where love rules and lust is shut out, and that future should shape life now.