Ephesians 5:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Testing is the work of the perfect, who are able to judge. Therefore, choosing what is not pleasing to the Lord belongs only to an imperfect and ignorant understanding, such as the passions mentioned above.

Everything must be done with discernment, so that, with caution and care, we do only what we know is pleasing to God. We must be like a prudent money-changer, who tests a coin not only by sight, oculo, but also by weight and sound.

But since in this passage the order of thoughts seems disturbed, and the whole section appears overloaded with words, I think the discourse can be restored in this form:

“Therefore do not be fellow partakers with them, testing what is pleasing to God. For although you were once darkness, now you are light in the Lord. Walk as sons of light, manifesting the fruits of light in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.”

From the greatness of holiness and goodness one can understand what deeds are pleasing to God. God Himself says: "You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy" (Lev 19:2). And the Lord Jesus says: "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36). This is what is pleasing to God. In His holiness is purification for us, and in His mercy is full and perfect righteousness.

"Testing what is pleasing" to the Lord. You have been endowed with reason and have received the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. Therefore you can readily discern what is pleasing to God.

Here is the way by which we walk as children of light: the testing of works pleasing to God. We live as enlightened people through testing, that is, by testing what work is pleasing to God, so that we may do it.

But how, you will say, can I carry out such testing? Examine and know which works have been established by God in the Divine Scriptures, handed down by the holy Apostles in writing or unwritten tradition, and taught by the Orthodox Church.

Such works are pleasing to the Lord. Therefore establish your feet in them and hold fast to them. “Stand,” the Apostle of God teaches, “and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by our epistle” (2 Thess 2:15).

But flee all other things, which are human inventions and opposed to them, as the same Apostle says, like “profane and old wives’ fables” (1 Tim 4:7).

The calling of Christians (Eph 5:8-10), who, "as children of light, must bear the fruits of the Spirit in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, testing what alone is pleasing to God."

The Apostle indicates a new impulse toward virtue in the brightness of Christianity and the darkness of paganism. They differ from one another as light differs from darkness.

According to blessed Theodoret, the Apostle speaks to the Ephesians as if saying: “Remember what you were and what you have become: from darkness, light.

Formerly, both in doctrines, that is, in your way of thinking and believing, and in life, you were real darkness. But now you are light. You know the true God and perform the works of light.

This came to pass with you not by your virtue, but in the Lord, that is, by divine grace. Therefore you must no longer become partakers with the sons of disobedience, upon whom the wrath of God is coming. Do not run back into darkness.”

This walking in the light must necessarily be accompanied by constant examination of what is just and what is not, and of what is pleasing to God rather than to men.

The children of light walk in goodness, righteousness, and truth, testing, carefully seeking out, and making certain what, within the circle of works subject to these virtues as foundations, is pleasing to God.

They follow that alone, and not what their own will, tastes, and opinions might desire. For in the realm of good, every good is truly good only in its place, at its time, in its measure, and in its application.

What is generally pleasing to God is not hard to know. In the word of God all this is defined in detail. The believer sincerely receives what is said there into his conscience.