Let Him Labor with His Hands
25 Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26 “Be angry, and don’t sin.” Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 and don’t give place to the devil. 28 Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, producing with his hands something that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need.
Each instruction replaces rather than forbids, and the reason attached to the first one is anatomical.
The pattern of these verses is consistent and worth naming: nothing is merely prohibited. Falsehood is put away and truth is spoken. Anger is bounded and the devil given no place. Stealing stops and work begins. Every command has a positive half.
Verse 25 gives the reason for truthfulness, and it is not that lying is dishonorable: for we are members of one another. The body image from earlier in the chapter Ephesians 4:16 is applied to speech. Lying to a fellow believer is described as a limb misinforming the body it belongs to.
Verse 26 quotes a line about anger and then bounds it: do not let the sun go down on your wrath. The letter does not forbid the emotion; it puts a clock on it. And verse 27 names what the delay would provide — do not give place to the devil, a foothold, the same unseen opposition the letter has named twice already Ephesians 2:2 Ephesians 6:12.
Then verse 28, and it is the most complete example of the pattern. Let him who stole steal no more — the prohibition. But rather let him labor, producing with his hands something that is good — the replacement. And then a third clause that most readers do not expect: that he may have something to give to him who has need.
The thief is not directed toward self-sufficiency. He is directed through honest work toward generosity — the opposite end of the same transaction he used to be on. A man who took from others is told to work so that he has surplus for others.
settled What this mark means