Sexual immorality has a lot of outlets, but it always starts in the heart. Lust takes root in chest-soil. Impurity is also an internal condition not merely measured externally. And while a lot of men have come out of the covetousness closet, it’s a failure of proper value proposition, hence why it’s also a synonym for idolatry.
In Ephesians 5:3 Paul says these “must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.” If a reporter was trying to dig up the sexual immorality skeletons of the church body, he’d have to make things up.
The first part of Ephesians 5:4 adds three more things that don’t belong among God’s children who are imitating the fragrant offering of Christ.
Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place
These are mostly mouthy sins. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so addressing wrong mouth-words right after wrong heart-wants shouldn’t be surprising. What is too often surprising is what potty mouths Christians open.
“Filthiness” is shameful, obscene, disgusting. “Foolish talk” is being silly about the serious. “Crude joking” is coarse jesting (NKJV), talking about bodily functions in suggestive and non dignified ways.
This sort of talk is salacious, it gets attention, it’s ubiquitous. It’s “out of place” for Christians. Stop listening to it, enjoying it for entertainment, spreading it. Innuendo, double entendre, sex jokes, all misplace what God gave as good and honorable in its place. It turns your mom into meat, your sister into a punchline. My brothers, these things are out of place.