foolish talk: silly, empty chatter that betrays a dull and undisciplined mind
This word is built from two pieces: the adjective for "dull, foolish" (mōros) joined to the ordinary word for "speech." It belongs to a small family of Greek words that each name a kind of bad talk, and at its plainest it simply means silly, senseless chatter, the sort of empty talk that shows a person is not really thinking. The same root describes something that has gone flat and tasteless, like salt that has lost its savor, so the picture is of speech drained of any real worth.
It appears only once in the New Testament, in Ephesians 5:4, wedged between two other words for corrupt speech: obscene, shameful talk (αἰσχρότης) on one side and coarse joking (εὐτραπελία) on the other. That company has convinced most modern scholars that the target here is not harmless small talk but the loose, indiscreet banter of the drinking party, the kind of speech that flows when wine has loosened self-control.
An older line of reading takes it more mildly, as merely frivolous and empty chatter, a lesser fault than outright obscenity. Behind both readings stands the Old Testament picture of the fool whose careless words expose an ungodly heart. Whichever shade is in view, the word names talk that has gone worthless, set here in deliberate contrast with the thanksgiving that should fill a Christian's mouth instead.
Disputed
How much moral weight μωρολογία carries in Ephesians 5:4: whether it names merely frivolous, empty chatter or the coarse, indiscreet speech characteristic of the pagan drinking party. The lexica agree on the base sense "foolish talk"; the disagreement is over its force in this vice list, between αἰσχρότης (shamefulness) and εὐτραπελία (coarse wit).
- minorityThe milder reading: frivolous, insipid small talk, a lesser fault than outright obscenity, supported by Paul's relatively soft qualifier that such things are simply "not fitting."; C. Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (1856); T. K. Abbott, Ephesians and Colossians (ICC, 1897); E. Best, Ephesians (ICC, 1998)
- minorityThe wisdom-tradition reading: godless, morally disordered speech in the line of the Old Testament fool (nābāl) whose words expose an impious heart, a category shaped by the Septuagint's use of the μωρ- root.; R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, §xxxiv; G. Bertram, 'μωρός κτλ.', TDNT 4:832-847
- majorityThe symposium reading, dominant in recent scholarship: the drunken, indiscreet, sexually coarse banter of the Greco-Roman banquet, sharing the moral disorder of the surrounding vices, and echoing Plutarch's report that philosophers defined drunkenness itself as "foolish talk over wine."; M. Barth, Ephesians 4-6 (Anchor Bible, 1974); A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42, 1990), 321; F. Thielman, Ephesians (BECNT, 2010), 330; C. E. Arnold, Ephesians (ZECNT, 2010), 336