"3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”"
Ephesians 5:3-14
Paul could hardly be more forceful and direct in what he says in 3. Not only are such things not to be practised, they are not even to be named among believers. This is a very penetrating and perceptive word, for to speak of such things, to want to speak of them, betrays a secret preoccupation with them, and this is something that needs to be dealt with. One can usually tell what sort of person is speaking to us at any particular time - the man whose 'stock-in-trade' is the off-colour remark, the 'double entendre', the man whose conversation is just on this side of smut, when what is left unsaid is conveyed by the tone of voice or the kind of look just as unmistakably as if it had been spoken plainly. To be a person like that - and sadly one has sometimes heard professing Christians speak like this at wedding receptions - is to earn the Apostle's negative estimate in these verses. And one has only to think of the world of modern literature and entertainment to realise how needful such a warning is today, when impurity is exploited and commercialised, and traded upon, until people's minds are almost sodden with it. Paul says in 6, 'Don't let anyone deceive you on this point', make no mistake about it - as if to warn against Mr Worldly Wise who laughingly and condescendingly tells us we are old-fashioned and Victorian, and to move with the times. Well, there are worse things than being Victorian! Let us not forget that a day is coming when the times will stop moving, a day when time will be no more, but God will still be Light, and His criterion of judgment will still be 'walk in the light'. J.B. Phillips translates 4 as follows, 'The keynote of our conversation should be a sense of what we owe to God'. This does not mean to be always spouting religious talk; but it does mean that in all our talk, of whatever kind, there will be an integrity about us that will be unmistakable.