Biblion Bible Commentary
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Filled with the Spirit
Ephesians 5:18-21
18 Don’t be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, · WEB
One command governs four participles, and the last of them introduces everything the letter says about households.
The contrast in verse 18 is between two ways of being filled. Do not be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation — the noun describes a life without a limit — but be filled with the Spirit.
The verb is passive and continuous, so what is commanded is a condition to be kept rather than an experience to be had once. And the parallel with wine is not incidental: both fillings change how a person behaves, which is why what follows is behavior.
Four participles depend on that one imperative, and they run to the end of the paragraph. Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in the heart. Giving thanks always for all things. And subjecting yourselves to one another.
The first three are what a Spirit-filled congregation sounds like, and they are corporate — addressed to one another rather than performed privately. Thanksgiving appears again, as it did against covetousness Ephesians 5:4.
The fourth participle is the one that carries the rest of the letter. Subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ — mutual, without exception, and grammatically part of what being filled with the Spirit produces.
It also introduces everything from here to the end of chapter 6. In the oldest copies the instruction to wives has no verb of its own and depends on this participle, which is why one translation here brackets the supplied word. Whatever else the household passage does, it begins inside a command addressed to everybody.
settled What this mark means