Ephesians 5:17

“So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

Again Paul exhorts us to turn away from the foolish ways of the ungodly, and embrace God's way of living. In verse 15, he talked about being wise or unwise. He know speaks of being foolish.

the Greek word translated as “foolish” means more than just a lack of wisdom or information. This word refers to a moral folly in which we know what is right but deliberately choose a different action.

This is the same kind of thinking that we see in the Old Testament Psalms and Proverbs. ”The fool says in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm 14:1, 53:1) is referring to a person who wants to be able to indulge their passions without any moral, legal, or religious consequence.

A fool rejects moral reasoning because they do not want to be countable for their actions. They reject the idea of a moral law because they do not want to consider the reality of a moral law giver. All of their beliefs then become relative and fluid.

Paul is warning here that christians can choose to go down this path. We can indulge our sins and passions to such an extent that we lose sight of where God is and where we should be.

this is the path of repeated or habitual sin. We know what God wants of us but we refuse. This sin becomes an Idol because it is more precious to us than God.

rather than being foolish, we are to understand what the will of God is. Paul has already in this letter given some standards regarding christian behaviour as opposed to that of unbelievers.

we need to listen carefully to what the spirit is teaching us through scripture. Am I walking in the light of God or am I following the way of darkness?

In order to understand the will of the Lord we must develop the pattern of regular reading of the Bible. This needs to be done slowly and carefully, not in a 5 minute tick the box mindset.

If I really believe the Bible is the word of God, then I will desire to hear what He has to say to me through it.

there are times when the Holy Spirit uses the Bible to bring us to a place of conviction. The words seem to jump off the page and echo around our head. The ordinary word ( “logos” in the Greek) becomes a declared word ( “rhema” in the Greek) with all the force of “Thus says the Lord!”

Even when we have a certain measure of hardness in our heart because of sin, the Holy Spirit can break into our disordered thinking through the words of scripture.

similarly, when we pray and pay attention to the Holy Spirit, He can show us where we are doing well and where we need to change our way.

Conviction can come through many means, but if we place ourselves in proximity to God's word we are more likely to understand what the will of the Lord is.

while the immediate context of this verse is about our daily conduct, understanding the will of the Lord is also about directions in the bigger questions of life. If we are used to making our daily life decisions in the will of the Lord, then the big decisions about marriage, children, work, business, and so on, will be easier to make. Having become used to submitting in the smaller things, we will have no problems in submitting in the bigger decisions.

so we must always and constantly avoid being foolish, and instead try to understand the will of the Lord.

key points in this verse:

• Foolishness is a moral quality as much as it is about wisdom

• We are to line up our beliefs and our actions against God's word, the Bible

• If we regularly meditate on God's word, the Holy Spirit will convicted us when we are sinning

• To be confident that our big decisions are in accordance with God's will, we must practice seeking him in our daily decisions.