ESV: Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Tom Schreiner's Comments:
Two words are used to designate a dissolute lifestyle where one remains unconstrained by moral norms: “drunkenness” (μέθαι) and “carousing” (κῶμοι). We find a similar pairing in Rom 13:13, and 1 Pet 4:3 is also similar to what we find in Galatians. Those who give themselves over to revelry and wild parties demonstrate that they are still under the control of the old Adam rather than living in the new age inaugurated by Jesus Christ. The phrase “things like these” indicates that the vice list is partial and does not represent an exhaustive list of sins.
Douglas J. Moo, Galatians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament:
With the final two words of the list, Paul returns to sins characteristic of the Gentile world of his day. “Drunkenness” (μέθαι, methai) may refer simply to inebriation, but as BDAG (625) notes, the proximity of this word with κῶμοι (kōmoi, orgies) both here and in Rom. 13:13 may suggest the more specific nuance of “drinking bout” (the plural has a singular sense). This last word (κῶμοι) originally referred to a festal procession in honor of a Greek god and then came to be used more broadly for a feast or banquet. In Biblical Greek, however, the word always has the negative sense of “excessive feasting,” always involving too much drinking and often sexual liberties. A text from 2 Maccabees describing the activities of Greeks who desecrated the Jerusalem temple gives a sense of the word: “For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling [κώμων] by the Gentiles, who dallied with prostitutes and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and besides brought in things for sacrifice that were unfit” (2 - (2 -Macc. 6:4; see also Wis. 14:23; Rom. 13:13; 1 Pet. 4:3). The plural form is again used, with “wild parties” (NLT) perhaps catching the idea fairly well (NIV and ESV “orgies” is too specifically sexual). Peter uses this word, along with two others that Paul lists in this context, to describe the pagan lifestyle characteristic of Gentiles before conversion: “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery [ἀσέλγεια], lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing [κώμοις] and detestable idolatry [εἰδωλολατρίαις]” (1 Pet. 4:3).
Ronald Y.K. Fung (Galatians):
Kōmoi is variously rendered as “carousings” (NASB), “revellings” (AV) and “orgies” (NEB). Kōmos (singular) is a natural companion of “drunkenness” (cf. Rom. 13:13), a characteristic feature of the pagan way of life (1 Pet. 4:3), and a concrete example of putting “pleasure in the place of God” (so NEB, 2 Tim. 3:4, Gk. philēdonos). This catalog of vices is prefaced by hatina (“the kind of”) and followed by kai ta homoia (“and the like”) both of which show that the enumeration is representative and not exhaustive.⁹⁸ Many sins mentioned elsewhere in Paul’s letters⁹⁹ are missing from this list. Of the fifteen items mentioned, the first three and the last two (groups [a] and [d]) are sins committed in the sphere of the body, but the rest (groups [b] and [c]) “might well be committed by disembodied spirits,” thus showing that “the deeds of the flesh” are not necessarily physical or sensual, but embrace spiritual vices as well.
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