Ephesians, Chapter 5, verses 1-8
2 After general exhortations, to love, 3 to flee fornication, 4 and all uncleanness, 7 not to converse with the wickedLuke, Chapter 16, verses 10-15
1 The parable of the unjust steward, 14 Christ reproveth the hypocrisy of the covetous Pharisees16
16:10 And whether ye have more or less, see that ye be faithful as well as wise stewards. He that is faithful in what is meanest of all, worldly substance, is also faithful in things of a higher nature; and he that uses these lowest gifts unfaithfully, is likewise unfaithful in spiritual things.
16:11 Who will intrust you with the true riches? - How should God intrust you with spiritual and eternal, which alone are true riches?
16:12 If ye have not been faithful in that which was another's - None of these temporal things are yours: you are only stewards of them, not proprietors: God is the proprietor of all; he lodges them in your hands for a season: but still they are his property. Rich men, understand and consider this. If your steward uses any part of your estate (so called in the language of men) any farther or any otherwise than you direct, he is a knave: he has neither conscience nor honour. Neither have you either one or the other, if you use any part of that estate, which is in truth God's, not yours, any otherwise than he directs. That which is your own - Heaven, which when you have it, will be your own for ever.
16:13 And you cannot be faithful to God, if you trim between God and the world, if you do not serve him alone. Mat 6:24.
16:15 And he said to them, Ye are they who justify yourselves before men - The sense of the whole passage is, that pride, wherewith you justify yourselves, feeds covetousness, derides the Gospel, Luk 16:14, and destroys the law, Luk 16:18. All which is illustrated by a terrible example. Ye justify yourselves before men - Ye think yourselves righteous, and persuade others to think you so.
5
5:1 Be ye therefore followers - Imitators. Of God - In forgiving and loving. O how much more honourable and more happy, to be an imitator of God, than of Homer, Virgil, or Alexander the Great!
5:3 But let not any impure love be even named or heard of among you - Keep at the utmost distance from it, as becometh saints.
5:4 Nor foolish talking - Tittle tattle, talking of nothing, the weather, fashions, meat and drink. Or jesting - The word properly means, wittiness, facetiousness, esteemed by the heathens an half - virtue.But how frequently even this quenches the Spirit, those who are tender of conscience know. Which are not convenient - For a Christian; as neither increasing his faith nor holiness.
5:6 Because of these things - As innocent as the heathens esteem them, and as those dealers in vain words would persuade you to think them.
5:8 Ye were once darkness - Total blindness and ignorance.Walk as children of light - Suitably to your present knowledge.