Bible Mastery - Ephesians 5:9-11

Thanks for listening to the Bible Mastery Podcast, brought to you by Teleios. In this episode, William and Jeanette Stewart will cover Ephesians 5:9-11.

The Bible Mastery Podcast brings you verse-by-verse teaching that’s clear, grounded, and life-changing. We take the Bible at its word—interpreting it in a normal, literal way—so you can uncover its deep truths about salvation, spiritual well-being, and daily living. Our goal is simple: to help you understand Scripture and equip you with the tools to interpret it confidently, without getting lost in noise or speculation.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Bible Mastery Podcast, sponsored by Telehost and hosted by co-founders Bill and Jeanette Stewart. Here, we give you verse-by-verse teaching from the truth of scripture that's clear, grounded, and life-changing. Our goal is to help you understand the Bible and equip you with tools to interpret it yourself confidently and correctly. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hello, I'm William Stewart, co-founder of Teleholis. Welcome back to our podcast on Ephesians. I'm here with my wonderful wife Jeanette.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Thank you for joining us, everyone, today. We're glad to have you with us.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

We start today in chapter five on verse nine. As a reminder to please go to our website, look at our disclaimer bio, like us, leave a comment, ask a question. We will interact with us. We uh also invite you to look on toyosresearch.com or at our other fibers studies and podcasts, particularly on biblical Greek, that could help you go even deeper into scripture. As a reminder, also, we look at all the Bible as scripture true in everything that it addresses. And we interpret it in a normal, literal way, hoping to avoid bias overlay from historical theology or from denominational theology, which would allow you to know what the Bible says so you can assess these hermeneutical interpretation systems of yourself and what's being consistent with scripture and what is not. So, in context, we are in the lifestyle section of Ephesians from chapters four to six. We've gone through most recently create a monuments and commands regarding speech, mostly some of our actions. That was at the end of chapter four. Paul steps back at the beginning of chapter five to remind us that we don't live like we were before we were Christians, and we have the power not to do that as regenerative believers. And now he's in an interesting section about how we interact with non-believers. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Yes, it's a great passage, and I'm glad you emphasize that we always try to interpret in context. And so where we left off last time, Paul is admonishing us in verse eight that we need to walk as children of light. And that word walk, remember, is peripateo, which really means to be circumspect, to look around you carefully. So we would like to maybe call it lifestyle. So back in verse two, he said your lifestyle should be one of love and sacrifice, but now he's saying your lifestyle should be one of a child of the light. So picking up from there, he tells us now in verse nine that, well, let me read the verse eight just to put us into context. For you were before darkness, but now light in the Lord. So lifestyle walk as children of light. Verse 9, then, for the fruit of the spirit in all goodness and righteousness and truth. So this is a very interesting verse. First of all, I'd like to comment on the word fruit. I'm not a great gardener, but I have heard that the leaves of lemon trees and lime trees look very similar. So when they're growing up side by side, you may be able to differentiate which was your lime tree that you planted and which was your lemon tree. But how would you ultimately know? Well, when the tree bears fruit, it tells you what kind of tree it is.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Same with the word I don't think I could still tell the difference. It's not a really good fruit person itself. I do they label things.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Lemons are yellow and limes are usually green. That's helpful. Thank you. Good anytime. Semester in our kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

I hope it's not me.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

So point being that the fruit identifies to what it belongs, basically. So here he's saying that your fruit, your identity is revealed, or your identity reveals what you're associated with or what you come out of. And here it says fruit of the spirit. This is a little bit misleading in the King James Version because older manuscripts actually don't have the word spirit here, they have the word light. And we think that this is a much better interpretation because the older manuscripts are considered to be more accurate.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

But what do you mean by older manuscripts? Why is that important?

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Yes, that's a really good question. So if a manuscript was discovered from maybe around 200 AD, and there was one discovered from maybe 100, the older one, we would say the 100 AD is probably the one that's more accurate because it was closer to the original. Because as manuscripts were copied, it gave the potential for the introduction of error.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, and this is a whole area of study, and I confess my ignorance of it, but it's vitally important. And I know Paul Weaver on Bible Theology Matters has several good episodes on this. The whole study, people devote to aligns in this, of finding the best manuscripts, and part of that has to do with how old they are, otherwise, the earliest manuscripts. So, yeah, I think a number of very important earlier manuscripts from 200 AD and around that time, used light. Actually, interesting, I looked at Biblehub.com, a good resource that is on the net and not a download like ESORD, and they list for each verse the different, many different versions. And I going down the list, the major Bible translations, the recent ones in IB and ESB, if I'm saying that like ESB, I think also have light. Whereas the King James and its and the revised, I think, King James stay with spirit. I don't think there's much difference, but again, we want to be as accurate as we can, and there might be some controversy about which to choose. I think the King James uses spirit because in the Texas Receptus, that's the original text developed by Erasmus around 1517 that allowed modern Greek studies after about a thousand years. And it's Receptus because it receives everything. He included all the manuscripts, which were later manuscripts at that time, and which I think then had the spirit as opposed to maybe not having access, or the minority of the manuscripts, which were the early ones, had light. So I'm projecting there a little bit, but I think that's why the King James has spirit. Sorry for that interruption, but please continue. We can remember what you're talking about before.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

So we're gonna go with light. So the verse would read, for the fruit of the light in all goodness, righteousness and truth. So, in other words, the evidence that you are a child of the light is in all goodness, righteousness and truth. So goodness just really means good, active goodness. I think that goodness characterizes us as a child of the light. Third John, I think it's verse 11, says the same that we should live in goodness. And then the word righteousness, obviously we've seen this before, and truth, these are characteristics that emerge in our lives as we are regenerated people. So when we're regenerated, we are declared righteous. We are in the truth as God has revealed the absolute truth, and our lives reflect goodness. So I think what he's trying to say here, and again, not stick not skipping over that first little conjunction for is Gar. So he's explaining how to be a child of the light, and he's saying, These things are the evidence that you belong to the light, you're a child of light.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Always a point that you brought up last night, and we discussed this at dinner, was that light in verse nine links to verse eight directly. So that's an important point, and why we also chose light as the interpretation. So it's as you said, it's giving the evidence and explaining how we can be light. Now, I think just to clarify the regeneration, because this is so skipped over oftentimes in preaching, the regeneration occurs at our salvation, and it's talked about many places. Romans 6, 2 to 12, I think really is the key passage. But Ephesians 2, 4 to 7, Colossians 2, 11 to 13, Galatians 3, 27, on and on. John talks about it as well, and it's where at salvation the Holy Spirit kills the old man and creates a new person. We're identified with Christ's death, we're identified with his resurrection, and then the spirit having created a holy man that God considers righteous can dwell in us, and it's based on that that we can be good, that we can be righteous, and that we can live the truth. So then, as we're able to live this way in the truth, righteousness, and doing good things, that becomes the evidence that we're walking in the light, and indeed we are walking in the light. What would you add?

SPEAKER_03 10:34

That's thank you for clarifying that such an important point. That the old man died when we came to faith, as Romans 6 that you referred to, says, We are dead, buried, resurrected with Christ. So God, that old man can't come back to life, is dead. We are truly new regenerated people. And then the evidence of that, as people look at us, is we're fruit. So we are identified with the platform of righteousness, the new man, the regenerated man.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Sorry, go ahead. I wanted to add to that point. So it's so important. So you and I and everybody listening who have believed by faith alone in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, are regenerated. We don't arise every morning and think, okay, gee, I need to prove I'm walking in the light. No, we just do it because that new person naturally, even though we still have our sins and problems and even mature, they naturally glean and do the things of God over time, despite stumbling in sin. They return to God and they do it. They don't have to prove to themselves that they're Christians, to other people, that we're not proving it, but we do show them because we are doing those things.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Excellent. And you've used the word a few times now, is what we do in the morning. We get up and prove what? So please take us to verse 10, which talks about proving.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

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SPEAKER_02 12:45

I guess that's right. A different use of the word proof.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

It's proving was acceptable to the Lord. Now, proving here is one of my favorite words in scripture, dokimatso. It's Greek, original Greek. And it came probably from the 07 to 800 BC in time in Greek, and it had a military application meaning, whereas for the Greek hop like soldier, they would create a long line of soldiers called the physics. And you had a person on your right and a person on your left, and it became basically a wall. So that wall was dependent on you and your position and a person on your left and your right, as well as your life. So you wanted a person who was beside you that was particularly Yokimatsu, proven in battle. So you could depend on them to guard your plank and to fend off anybody that might stab you with their spear or sword.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Important.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yes, I agree. So this word is used a few times in scripture. We're told to prove what is right and pleasing to what is truth and God's truth, Romans 12, 1, and what's pleasing to the Lord, we're told to prove other people. You know, that they say who they are, so they could due diligence and prove your own work. Here it's proving what's pleasing to the Lord. So I think we know what's pleasing to the Lord by scripture, and we prove it by testing it out and showing that scripture is good and wise and works effectively in your life. For example, in choosing a spouse, scripture would say you would choose a godly spouse, you can fulfill that role in Ephesians 5, that's determined for them, and minister to the other person into the relationship. You do that, and you tend to have to go back and learn more. But the point is here, I think, in application, you first have to know God's word. And again, as we say, sometimes people sometimes are buoyed by God's word because they're afraid they might tell them what they can't do. But really, God's word tells us what we can do and how we can live the fruit and prove this out as we walk our Christian walk. Jeanette, please add some additional wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

I just wanted to go to the word acceptable, Billy. You've been saying we prove what's pleasing to God, and that really the word acceptable does mean well pleasing. So just to make sure that that's clear for our listeners and viewers. Different than acceptable? How would you explain that? Well, the word literally means well pleasing. So I think it's similar, but you know, when I think about pleasing somebody, it probably means what I'm doing is accepted by them. But pleasing, I don't know, to me, it's like a warmer word, I guess. It's a little stronger, maybe. Yeah. Okay. The idea that we test, in a sense, we put scripture to the test. We try it out, we apply it to our lives, we implement it, and we see that God's word is true because it does provide for good results in our life. I love your emphasis, Bill. And it's so true. So many people are so afraid. Oh, if I study the Bible, it's going to tell me not to do this, this and this. But the contrary is just so beautiful. It tells us what we should and could do, and it pleases God and it's good for us. It brings wonderful when you think of fruit, we think of things that are delicious and nice to look at and nice to eat, and usually it's sweet, right? All the things that are nice and pleasant. And that's what applying scripture to our individual lives should look like.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Are you going to tell me how to differentiate fruits again?

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Oh good.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

But I think verse 11 might discuss that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Well, please proceed.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

So verse 11 then starts with the word and, which is chi, very important little conjunction. It's adding on to what went before. So he told us then what the evidence of being a child of light is. And now he says, and don't have fellowship, the idea of partaking, participating with the unfruitful works of darkness. So there's a contrast here. The good fruit of being in the light is great. And then he says, but don't don't have, don't partake, don't hang out with, I guess, those that are doing the unfruitful, the bad works, the shriveled up, rotten fruit of darkness. So there's a great contrast here between light and dark, good fruit and unfruitfulness. And then he says, however, instead, he's saying, on the contrary, what should you do? Well, you should reprove them. And this word really means to show something to be wrong, maybe even to shame them. So I think as believers, just by virtue of the fact that we belong to God, we're light, we're all the things that are good, that reproves those who are not good. Just our lifestyle alone. People hate us because we belong to God and we stand up for the things that are good and right. However, there are times when it's more than just your lifestyle. Sometimes you have to speak out reproof. And again, I don't think this means that we go around and we say to unbelievers, oh, you know, I saw what you did and this is awful on an individual daily basis. But instead we call out the things, maybe the societal things, you know, people that would break down societal good morality, things like that. And Bill, I know you have comments on this because we've discussed this between us, but please add.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

It's a great but very complex verse. Several points and reprove. The Greek word book Kittle, a massive 10-volume group of books from the last century, actually, a work of great scholarship indicates that Lako and work for reprove here, it sort of indicates a way to summarize it because it's difficult to define. And it does, as Jeanette nicely said, means reprove at its basis, but has a bit of a negative tone. But it involves, Kendall says it involves all the aspects of what a teacher would be, which means reprove, admonish, but also has maybe an emphasis of teaching as well. So I think that could be potentially included with definition. Looking at other commentators, they don't really mention the education part, but the reproof is always there. You know, what that involves, I think that may involve people with the church. You know, I think we live a godly life ourselves. I mean, that's one way to reprove people. And we pray for others, you know, with them to stepping. But eventually in the church, as you mentioned last night, as we discussed this genetic, we need to step forward and gently admonish somebody. And this is scriptural. I mean, again, not for our own satisfaction, but to generally help them stay in fellowship with God and others. But I think also there's an element in our society where Christians need to improve it. It may be somebody in your neighborhood that's breaking all the HOA rules. Well, maybe you shouldn't be doing this, you know, and get the car out in front, you know, on the uh cinder box out of your front yard for everybody's good. That that may be that. But you know, again, that's not our major purpose in life. But we may see evils in society, as you said, such as sex slavery or profound uh corruption, you know, in the government or private NGOs, uh, election fraud, things that are so bad that would ruin the governmental order in our society that Christians need to stand up and say something. And yet we've seen this in the past few years, not to be political here, but these are real issues, and we've seen Christians do stand. So I think that that's part of it here. And again, this is us, and it could be controversial. But my question is to you, Janet, what's fellowship here? So it's such connected, it's with fellowship, with community. Practically, how's a Christian to know what exactly that is?

SPEAKER_03 21:30

I think when we use the word community, we say we're in community with a group of people. We share values, we share time, do things together. So I think it's who you surround yourself with, who you're associated with, who you're identified with. So as fruit identifies what we the platform from which we derive or derived, so fellowship is what characterizes your time and thoughts and efforts, and who you hang around with.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

that well said i i would say ask your if you if you're doubting or questioning with whom you're spending time so ask yourself what are the goals these people uh in their goal of spending time is it sin and if they're trying to attract you to that and it seems fun is their goal to use you up and try to get you to join them and to use something that you have for their own good so those are key questions who's setting the atmosphere is the second question are they setting the atmosphere making it difficult for you to be godly or to speak to them about the gospel or are you so I think if we're going to have a relationship with an unbeliever we need to make sure that it's our goals you know or a mutual positive goal set with that other person that they may be defined by a contract for either business typically business purposes or you know nonprofit purposes but they're clearly defining the goals and those goals have a purpose that are good.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Use the Christians set the atmosphere so instead of hanging out at a bar with five or six people who want to lure you into a sexual sin you meet one of them for coffee. You go to a local coffee shop and sit down and talk to them and you can sort of expand your goals to that relationship there and not be controlled by them or others.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

What do you think this is an important issue I think good point I think we're just about out of time so we probably should wrap up okay great so what we've seen here today again is part of the lesson we'll continue this next time how we interact with other believers we as believers walk in the light and we think and we act we have goals we construct people around us that are also in the light but we don't have the goals in fellowship with people in darkness and we can do this by the power of regeneration and goodness and righteousness and like true thank you true so these are we we keep ourselves separate we have to interact with other believers but we control that relationship they don't control us brother any addition there for that song no that's great these are wonderful verses aren't they really give us very positive things that are wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

So helpful we'll look forward to seeing you next time yeah thanks for joining us today we'll see you next time bye bye thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible mastery podcast join us next week for another episode disclaimer this podcast is intended for listeners 18 and older and provided as information and for entertainment purposes only the hosts are not trained as pastors or counselors and do not hold seminary degrees but are self-trained in theology. Some topics discussed may be sensitive thought provoking or challenging listener discretion is advised especially if you're navigating personal or spiritual matters no podcast content should be considered as advice or recommendations for any personal or institutional situation professional or spiritual based decision making medical legal financial or safety critical applications commercial purposes replacing formal education or accredited training programs the views expressed are those of the speakers and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by teleos the podcast is subject to change at any time without notice although the podcasters endeavor to ensure current and accurate content it may contain errors and is not presented as current, accurate complete or appropriate for your specific requirements the podcasters do not accept any liability for the podcast or any other information or the use of such information provided