Ephesians 4:31 Commentary and Bible Study

We may have wondered in this passage why, earlier, Paul talks about things like stealing and lying and anger, and now he seems in some measure to retrace his steps and cover the ground again. What is different about verse 31? What is different is that these are the family sins. Now he comes back to the point made much earlier in the chapter. We have been talking about the body of Christ, like a human body: all its members and parts fitly joined together, working in harmony. He has come back to the family theme now, and sins which particularly must be kept out of the family of God’s dear people. ‘Let all bitterness’, or sharpness of tongue, ‘and wrath, and anger.’ What is the difference between wrath and anger? It’s hard to be certain, but wrath would probably refer to settled anger, whereas anger would refer to paroxysms of anger, which easily flare up. Don’t have either kind: the settled anger or the flaring up kind. ‘And clamour’ – what’s that? Well literally, screams and shrieks in the original. So it refers to emotional outbursts. When you think you are offended don’t shriek, even metaphorically. Don’t scream either literally or figuratively. Just take things calmly. We are a family. We are the people of God. No clamour, no shrieking, no silly outbursts – failure to control emotions. ‘And evil speaking,’ – that’s interesting: gossip and so on – ‘be put away from you’, and then a special phrase all for itself, ‘with all malice.’ Malice here is simply ill will. It is the opposite of sympathy. It is a kind of hardness. ‘With all malice’ - in our relationships one with another, there is no ill will. There is no, ‘Oh, he always says that; he always does that; she is always like that.’ A settled unforgiving spirit is referred to here: all forms of hardness.