Bible Commentary

Ephesians 4:19

Ephesians 4:19

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public Domain

Who being past feeling. Without sense of shame, without conscience, without fear of God or regard for man, without any perception of the dignity of human nature, the glory of the Divine image, or the degradation of sin.

Have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness (fourth point of difference). This is the climax—heathenism in its worst and fullest development, yet by no means rare. The sensuality of the heathen was and is something dreadful.

Many of them gave themselves to it as a business, worked at it as at a trade or employment (see Uhlmann's 'Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,' etc.). Details, such as even the walls of Pompeii furnish, are unfit for the public eye.

With greediness, πλεονεξία means the desire of having more, and has reference to the insatiable character of sensual sins. Sometimes it is translated (A.V.) "covetousness," as .

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