Reflecting on the Passage

Read Ephesians 5:15–21

Looking Deeper

Most of the time, when we study a passage, we make a beeline for the center of it. You know the line we’re trying to explain or the verse we want to wrestle with. But today’s reading doesn’t drop us straight into the middle. Instead, Paul begins his descent slowly, giving us the wider landscape of his thought before he leads us into the heart of it.

As we move into the passages ahead, Paul is concerned with something very practical: how we live, how we relate to those around us, and, very specifically, how we relate to those in our own household. To get there, he starts with the foundation. He urges us toward wise living which he equates with learning to understand, in all practicality, what the Lord’s will is. And he connects that understanding directly to being filled with the Holy Spirit. In other words, this is the staging ground. If you want the kind of life God intends, this is where it begins.

What strikes me as fascinating is what Paul says that Spirit-filled life actually looks like. He writes about “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit… singing and making music from your heart to the Lord” (5:19 NIV). If I’m honest, that’s not quite what I would have expected. I probably would have guessed Paul would connect the infilling of the Spirit with miracles, signs, and wonders. But that’s not where he goes. Instead, the evidence of the Spirit looks much more like an outpouring of the fruit of the Spirit, wrapped in gratitude toward the God who is the source of it all.

You remember the list: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Paul’s vision is that our lives become a display window for who God is. But that only happens when we are filled with the Spirit, because none of those things come naturally to us. They certainly didn’t come naturally to me.

In marriage and in life, we often think we know what “best” looks like. Good intentions drift into things like control or rebellion when in reality, being filled with the Spirit looks like humility.

Which is why this section ends with verse 21:

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

You could make a strong case that this is the most important sentence, not just in this section, but in the whole chapter. When we are filled with the Spirit, it lays the groundwork for relationships that actually reflect God’s nature. Why? Because the Spirit’s greatest work in us is not power, but it is humility. It leads us into a posture of submission, both to God and to the people around us.

Love begins to seek the interests of others before our own.

And if you think that kind of posture is powerful in parenting, just wait until you see what it does to a marriage.

Question to Ponder

What if God’s goal in marriage is not fairness but formation?