What Does Ephesians 5:3 Mean?
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or the grasping for more, let it not even be named among you, as becomes the set-apart ones.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;THE KEY
The decisive word is “among”: the verse measures set-apartness by what belongs to the shared life.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the reader now: sexual immorality, every uncleanness, and grasping after more do not fit a life marked as set apart. “Not once named among you” makes the boundary communal, these are not to become part of what characterizes the shared life. The measure is the life that belongs among the set-apart.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a community can carry the name “set apart” while making room for these practices in its shared life is undone.
THE ROOT
ὀνομαζέσθω
onomazestho
GROWS FROM
ὄνομα
onoma
Name; designation, reputation, or recognized identity.
The verb translated “named” grows from the word for a name, which can mark identity and reputation as well as a spoken label. Here, “among you” brings the concern into the community’s recognizable shared life.
ALSO GROWS
onoma: Name; designation, reputation, or authority.
ὄνομα
It reveals that naming can concern the identity a community bears, as well as what it says aloud.
onomazō: To name, mention, or designate.
ὀνομάζω
This is the verb family behind “let it not be named,” joining the act of naming to what is present among the community.
ἁγίοις
hagiois
GROWS FROM
ἅγιος
hagios
Set apart; belonging to a distinct, dedicated sphere.
“the set-apart ones” in this verse is hagiois. “Saints” names people by their set-apart character. That word gives the list its measure: these practices do not belong in the shared life of those set apart.
ALSO GROWS
hagiazō: To set apart or consecrate.
ἁγιάζω
This verb shows the action contained in the identity named by “saints.”
hagiōsynē: Set-apartness; holiness.
ἁγιωσύνη
This related noun names the quality against which the verse’s list is measured.
ἀκαθαρσία
akatharsia
GROWS FROM
καθαρός
katharos
Clean, pure.
Beneath “uncleanness” is the clean-word family, marked by a privative prefix: the term describes what is not clean. Its related cleansing verb makes visible the same root’s other branch, clearing what has become unclean.
ALSO GROWS
akathartos: Unclean; impure.
ἀκάθαρτος
This adjective shares the clean-word family in its negative form and helps expose the construction of “uncleanness.”
katharizō: To cleanse; make clean.
καθαρίζω
This verb shows the cleaning branch of the same word family named by the verse’s term for uncleanness.
THE PATTERN
Set-apart identity takes visible shape in the boundaries around a community’s shared life.
For the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give your enemies before you. Therefore your camp shall be set apart, so that he sees no naked thing in you and turns away from you.For God did not call us into uncleanness, but in setting apart.but as the one who called you is set apart, you also become set apart in all your walk.THE THREAD
Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, holding this seal, "The Lord knows those who are his." And, "Let everyone who names the nature of the Anointed One stand away from misalignment."The same naming word family links naming Christ’s name with what is permitted among the set-apart. Here, naming the name is joined to departing from what contradicts that identity.
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