Thrust Statement: The unfruitful works of darkness is associated with every kind of impurity.

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:11

            Ephesians 5:11 is cited by many well-meaning Christians to justify their separation from other Christians who refuse to be traditional to the whims of a select few who hold to certain doctrines that are considered essential to salvation. The KJV employs the expression “unfruitful works of darkness” and exhorts the saints not to have “fellowship with.” On the surface, this Scripture, in isolation from its context, appears to give validity to the actions of certain individuals. Almost every division within the known twenty-five or more distinctive religious bodies within the Stone/Campbell Movement cite this passage in order to give some soundness to their transactions of chastisement (withdrawal). The “unfruitful works of darkness,” depending on which fellowship one is associated with, generally are associated with instrumental accompaniment in singing, solos, quartet singing, handclapping in the assembly, handraising in the assembly, Sunday school, individual cups, manner of breaking the bread in the Lord’s Supper, the church treasury, Bible colleges, and so on.  In other words, if someone violates what one considers to be one of the so-called five acts (rituals) of worship on Sunday morning, then one must not have “fellowship with.”

            When one begins with a faulty perception of the context, one finds his/her own expectations. What an author meant is the only true interpretation to any Scripture. In other words, the meaning of a text is the author’s meaning. One must reject the traditional interpretation, not because it is private, but rather because it is wrong. If one fails to consider context, this failure leads to an interpretation of its own, which is totally cut off from its author.

            In the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul develops the “one faith” that is mentioned in 4:5. In chapter 2, he calls attention to their prior state of utter degradation (2:1-3). These individuals had followed the “ways of the world” (2:3, NIV). In chapter 4, he exhorts the Ephesians to “live a life worthy of the calling you received” (4:1). They were taught “to put off your old self” and “to be made new in the attitude of your minds” (4:22, 23). Since Christians are created “to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (4:25), believers should cast off “bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (4:31). In this same chapter, he warns Christians about “unwholesome talk” (4:29). Once more, he calls attention to “sexual immorality” (5:3). Paul stresses the point that there should not even be “a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (5:3).

            Yet, it appears that some thought that purity of life really did not matter (5:6). “Let no man deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them” (5:6-7). Earlier, he says, “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (5:5). Having given these instructions about right behavior, he then says, “Your were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and untruth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret” (5:8-12). The “fruitless deeds of darkness” (NIV) is the same as the “unfruitful works of darkness” (KJV). Christians are to have no participation (“fellowship”) in these acts of darkness, “but rather expose them” (5:11).