Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 44:2 (NA 1993)
Article: Ephesians 5:18-20 And Mealtime Propriety
Author: Peter W. Gosnell

TynBul 44:2 (1993) p. 363

Ephesians 5:18-20 And Mealtime Propriety1

Peter W. Gosnell

Summary

Ephesians 5:18 startlingly contrasts drunkenness with fulness with the Spirit. Previous attempts to relate this contrast to excessive behaviour within Christian gatherings have not convinced many. Instead of suggesting alternative improprieties, the present study explores behavioural patterns followed at various Graeco- Roman convivial gatherings. These patterns indicate that some people who regularly met for special meals commonly chose abstention from drunkenness in favour of stimulating, even religious, discussion. Accordingly, the present study suggests that the statements of 5:18-20, and ultimately others made throughout the moral teaching in Ephesians, simply reflect the writer’s assumption that his readers regularly gathered in a mealtime context.

More than one commentator has suggested a possible link between the contrast found in Ephesians 5:18-20 and Christian mealtimes.2 Most of these mention the possibility of an abuse of the Lord’s Supper of the type found in 1 Corinthians 11. Instead of proposing the correction of abuses at Christian meals, others have considered that Ephesians 5:18a may be a mild polemic against Dionysian frenzies present at non-Christian meals.3 While there has been at least one detailed attempt to substantiate

TynBul 44:2 (1993) p. 364

the latter possibility,4 many have, with reason, recognised such suggestions as basically insupportable.5 Ephesians 5:18-20 makes no overt claim to be associated with any mealtime.

The basis for trying to explore such a background here is that the contrast in Ephesians 5:18 looks as though it belongs in a mealtime context. Drunkenness is to be opposed by fulness of the Spirit, which in turn leads to worshipful acts expressed to others, to oneself and to God. The writer might be charging his readers to avoid drunkenness at all times, and on pertinent special occasions to be filled with the Spirit. However, at least one Pauline letter indicates that drunkenness, worship, instruction and a meal could all take place at the same occasion....