th wine, wherein is excess; but be
filled with the Spirit; 19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and
hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord; 20. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and
the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; 21. Submitting
yourselves one to another in the fear of God.'--Eph. v. 11-21.

There are three groups of practical exhortations in this passage, of
which the first deals with the Christian as a reproving light in
darkness; the second, with the Christian life as wisdom in the midst of
folly; and the third with Christian sobriety and inspiration as the true
exhilaration in contrast with riotous drunkenness. Probably such
intoxication was prevalent in Ephesus in connection with the worship of
'Diana of the Ephesians,' for Paul was not the man to preach vague
warnings against vices to which his hearers were not tempted. An
under-current of allusion to such orgies accompanying the popular cult
may be discerned in his words.

These two preceding sets of precepts can only be briefly touched on now.
They lead up to the third, and the second is built on the first by a
'therefore' (ver. 15). The Apostle has just been saying that Christians
were 'darkness, but are now light in the Lord,' and thence drawing the
law for their life, to walk as 'children of light.' A very important
part of such walk is recoiling from all share in 'the unfruitful works
of darkness,'--a significant expression branding such deeds as being
both bad in their source and in their results. Dark doings have
consequences tragic enough and certain enough, but they are barren of
all such issues as correspond to men's obligations and capacities. Their
outcome is like the growths on a tree, which are not fruit, but products
of disease. There is no fruit grown in the dark; there is no worthy
product from us unless Christ is our light. If He is, and we are
therefore 'light in the Lord,' we shall 'reprove' or 'convict' the
Christless life. Its sinfulness will be shown by the contrast with the
Christ-life. A thunder-cloud never looks so lividly black as when
smitten by sunshine.

Our lives ought to make evil things ashamed to show their ugly faces.
Christians should be, as it were, the incarnate conscience of a
community. The Apostle is not thinking so much of words as of deeds,
though words are not to be withheld when needful. The agent of reproof
is 'the