II. There were converted thieves in the Ephesian Church, who still needed to be warned against their old propensities (iv. 28); there were men who had been sorcerers and fortune-tellers (Acts xix. 18, 19). It appears that there were in this circle converted _drunkards_ also, men to whom the apostle is obliged to say: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is riot.” In view of the following context (vv. 19-21), and remembering how the Lord’s table was defiled by excess at Corinth (1 Cor. xi. 17-34), it seems to us probable that the warning of verse 18 had special reference to the Christian assemblies. The institution of the common meal, the _Agapé_ or Lovefeast accompanying the Lord’s Supper, suited the manners of the early Christians, and was long continued. The cities of Asia Minor were full of trade-guilds and clubs for various social and religious purposes, in which the common supper, or club-feast, furnished usually by each member bringing his contribution to the table, was a familiar bond of fellowship. This afforded to the Church a natural and pleasant means of intercourse; but it must be purified from sensual indulgence. _Wine_ was its chief danger. The eastern coast of the Ægean is an ancient home of the vine. And the Greeks of the Asian towns, on those bright shores and under their genial sky, were a light-hearted, sociable race. They sought the wine-cup not for animal indulgence, but as a zest to good-fellowship and to give a freer flow to social joys. This was the influence that ruled their feasts, that loosened their tongues and inspired their gaiety. Hence their wit was prone to become ribaldry (ver. 4); and their songs were the opposite of the “spiritual songs” that gladden the feasts of the Church (ver. 19). The quick imagination and the social instincts of the Ionian Greeks, the aptness for speech and song native to the land of Homer and Sappho, were gifts not to be repressed but sanctified. The lyre is to be tuned to other strains; and poetry must draw its inspiration from a higher source. Dionysus and his reeling Fauns give place to the pure Spirit of Jesus and the Father. “The Aonian mount” must now pay tribute to “Sion hill”; and the fountain of Castalia yields its honours to “Siloa’s brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God.”