Walk in Love
1 Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance. 3 But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; 4 nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate, but rather giving of thanks. 5 Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man (who is an idolater), has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.
The imitation asked for is of God himself, and the model given is a specific act of self-surrender rather than a disposition.
Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. The word behind imitators is the root of mimic, and the qualifier keeps it from presumption: children copy a parent because they belong to him, not because they are equal to him.
Verse 2 supplies the content, and it is not a quality but an event. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us. The love to be imitated is defined by a handing over, and the letter uses the same construction of husbands three paragraphs later Ephesians 5:25.
The sacrificial vocabulary is deliberate: an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance, which is the language of the altar. What the readers are asked to imitate is described in the terms of a burnt offering.
Then verses 3 to 5 turn sharply to what love is not, and the list pairs two things a modern reader would separate: sexual immorality and covetousness. They appear together twice in three verses, and verse 5 names the second as idolatry outright. Both are ways of reaching for what is not given.
The standard for speech is set high — such things should not even be mentioned, and foolish talking and jesting are named as inappropriate. The letter has just made speech a matter of building others up Ephesians 4:29, and it is consistent here.
And the replacement offered is a single word: giving of thanks. Against covetousness, gratitude is the exact opposite motion — contentment with what has been given rather than appetite for what has not.
settled What this mark means