BEING FILLED: pleroo (RPPMPA): 

Note that this "laundry list" of sins covers the entire gamut of  life, be it the home, the family, marriage, the workplace, the church. No area of life is left unaffected by man's decision to turn his back on God.

As Pritchard comments

"In a sense, this passage is a comment upon the doctrine of total depravity. The historic Protestant doctrine uses phrases such as "spiritually dead, inherently corrupt, incapable of pleasing God and hopelessly lost" to describe the plight of the human race apart from Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be "inherently corrupt?" It means to live in the way Paul has just described." (When God Gives Up)

 Being filled (4137) (pleroo) (Click in depth word study of pleroo) which indicates more than just pouring water in a glass up the brim.

(1) pleroo was often used of the wind filling a sail and thereby carrying the ship along. To be filled with the Spirit then to is to be moved along in our Christian life by God Himself, by the same dynamic by which the writers of Scripture were “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2Pe1:21). The men in (Ro1:29) are being moved by their depraved minds to do unspeakable evil.

(2) pleroo also conveys the idea of permeation as of salt’s permeating meat in order to flavor and preserve it. The depraved minds of these men permeated their entire being resulting in the evil actions Paul lists out for us.

(3) pleroo has connotation of total control. The person who is filled with sorrow is no longer under his own control but is totally under the control of that emotion. In the same way, someone who is filled with fear, anger or even Satan (Ac5:3) is no longer under his own control but under the total control of that which dominates him. God has so given these men over to their debased minds that those minds totally control their thoughts and actions.

Being filled is perfect tense which speaks of having become filled and remaining in that state, thus pointing to a permanent filling and controlling. They are completely filled & thus totally permeated & controlled by an undiscerning rejected worthless mind! This is a frightening truth: Men shook their fist at their Creator and He gave them what they lusted for...to be their own god. This is revelation of God's just wrath against unrighteous man! What a tragic, grievous picture of MAN APART FROM GOD. Not being controlled by just a portion of unrighteousness but being filled with ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. Apathy leads to apostasy which brings moral anarchy. Just look at America circa 2000 (idolatry leads to immorality which leads to internal strife; cf the horrible description of men doing what is right in their own eyes in Judges 17-21).

Haldane notes that "being filled"...

"signifies that the vices here exposed were not tempered with virtues, but were alone and uncontrolled, occupying the mind and heart even to overflowing." (Haldane, R. An Exposition of Romans.)

Hodge comments on "being filled" that...

" The Greek construction links this either with the them of the preceding verse: “he gave them up, filled with all unrighteousness”; or it depends on the preceding infinitive to do: “so that they, filled with all unrighteousness, should commit" It is not connected with gave them over to imply that God gave them up after they were thus corrupt, but is linked with to do to express the consequence of God’s abandoning them to do the things which are not right. The crimes here mentioned were commonplace. The heathen were full of them (pleroo). They not only abounded, but in many cases were excused and even justified. Although the picture drawn here is dark, it is not as dark as that presented by the most distinguished Greek and Latin authors about their own countrymen. Commentators have collected a fearful array of passages from the ancient writers, which more than support the account given by the apostle. What Paul says about the ancient heathen world is true in all its essential features of men in all generations. Wherever men have existed, there have they shown themselves to be sinners, ungodly and unrighteous, and therefore justly exposed to the wrath of God." (Hodge, C. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 1835)

So, where do the evils listed in v29-31 come from? It all started back in (Ro1:18) where Paul gave the reason for why the gospel of the gift of God's righteousness is so desperately needed. The gospel is the power of God to save believers because in it God gives us what we need and could never produce on our own, namely, His own righteousness. The righteousness that God demands from us He freely gives to us, if we will trust Him. This is the great Biblical truth of justification by faith. So what Paul does in the verses (Ro 1:18ff) is describe for us the effects of suppressing the truth of God. He wants us to see all the evil of the world as a river that flows from this polluted spring. Reject God, suppress God, distort God, recreate God in your own image to your own liking, and the effect is worse than we expect. And the thing that is worse than we expect is that God joins our crusade against God, as it were, and delivers us into the debasing effects of our own rebellion against him.

WITH ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, WICKEDNESS, GREED, EVIL: pase adikia poneria pleonexia kakia:

All (3956)(pas) means just what it says, all with no exceptions in regard to their unrighteous conduct!

Unrighteousness (93) (adikia from a = not + dikê = right) is a condition of not being right, whether with God, according to the standard of His holiness and righteousness or with man, according to the standard of what man knows to be right by his conscience. 

In secular Greek adikia referred to unjust acts, or to deeds which caused personal injury. Rather than a general concept of injustice, this word was taken, in the writings of Plato, to mean an unjust act which injures a specific person. Such an act was not necessarily a violation of some specific law, but rather an affront against the just order of society. Among the acts which fell into this category were theft, fraud, and sexual crimes. Later this word came to mean a neglect of duty toward the pagan gods. The Septuagint (LXX) used this word to describe social sins, those deeds which violated human relations or the political order of society. Among these injustices were deceit, fraud, and lying.

Adikia is used 25 times in the NT (Luke 2x; John; Acts 2x; Romans 6x; 1 Corinthians; 2 Corinthians; 2 Thessalonians 2x; 2 Timothy; Hebrews; James; 2 Peter 2x; 1 John 2x) and is translated "doing wrong, 1; evildoers, 1; iniquities, 1; iniquity, 2; injustice, 1; unrighteous, 2; unrighteousness, 12; wickedness, 4; wrong."

Barclay writes that...

Adikia is the precise opposite of dikaiosune (righteousness), which means justice; and the Greeks defined justice as giving to God and to men their due. The evil man is the man who robs both man and God of their rights. He has so erected an altar to himself in the centre of things that he worships himself to the exclusion of God and man." (Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible Series, Rev. ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press or Logos)

Larry Richards writes that adikia

means "wrongdoing," "unrighteousness," "injustice." Its focus is on the concept of sin as conscious human action that causes visible harm to other persons in violation of the divine standard. (Richards, L O: Expository Dictionary of Bible Words: Regency)

Nietzsche was not correct when he pontificated that "might makes right". Only God makes right and only His standard is acceptable as perfect. All other is "not right" but is in fact adikia and no amount of men's "might" makes it "right".

John MacArthur writes that adikia or unrighteousness

encompasses the idea of ungodliness but focuses on the result. Sin first attacks God’s majesty and then His law. Men do not act righteously because they are not rightly related to God, who is the only measure and source of righteousness." (MacArthur, J: Romans 1-8. Chicago: Moody Press or Logos)

One can derive a good sense for the meaning of adikia by studying the passages in which it is used. For example, John defines adikia writing that "All unrighteousness is sin" (1 John 5:17) Paul describes the coming anti-christ whose coming will do the work of Satan "with all the deception of wickedness (adikia)".  (2 Thessalonians 2:10) Adikia corrupts the truth and chokes out the truth by its deceitfulness. From this use in Scripture we can deduce that adikia deceives as well as suppresses the truth (see exposition of Romans 1:18). Adikia or unrighteousness is loving sin more than loving God and His truth. When the heart is in love with self-exaltation and independence and the pleasures of sin, the mind will inevitably distort the truth or suppress the truth in order to protect the idols of the heart. What is needed is not just new ideas or more information, but a new heart. And a new set of passions and desires and pleasures. This is what God provides in the gospel and what Paul is showing men that they are in desperate need of.

Adikia is used to describe people as well as things. For example, adikia describes an "unrighteous steward' Lu 16:8, an "unrighteous judge" Lu 18:6 , the tongue or speech of controlled by the fallen sin nature ("the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity"). (James 3:6) Peter describes Simon the magician (who was seeking to purchase the effects of the Holy Spirit) as "in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity (adikia)." (Acts8:23) In a similar way these reprobates in Romans 1 are in bondage to their own unrighteousness, having been turned over by God to the depravity of their own minds!

Luke records that the traitor Judas Iscariot "acquired a field with the price of his wickedness (adikia)." (Acts 1:18). Similarly Peter warned of the just judgment on false teachers declaring they would suffer "wrong as the wages of doing wrong (adikia)" (see exposition of 2 Peter 2:13) going on to explain that these men forsook "forsaking the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness (he loved to earn money by doing wrong)." (See exposition of 2 Peter 2:15)

Paul asked and answered a rhetorical (for effect) question...

There is no injustice (adikia) with God, is there? May it never be!" (Romans 9:14)

In a passage which presents a similar thought, Jesus in a description of Himself declared that...

He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness  (adikia) in Him. (John 7:18)

Paul teaches that genuine Christian (agape) love...

does not rejoice (is never glad about) in unrighteousness (adikia) but rejoices with the truth" (1 Cor 13:6)

One day future Jesus will declare to men and women who thought they knew Him

I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS (literally "workers = ergates" of "iniquity = adikia").' (Luke 13:27)

Believers however are not immune to adikia, Paul commanding the Roman believers to stop continually (implying that it was in fact transpiring)...

presenting the members of your body to sin (the old sin nature inherited from Adam which was made potentially inoperative when we were co-crucified with Christ) as instruments (describes a tool or implement for preparing something and then a weapon of warfare) of unrighteousness (adikia)." (see note Romans 6:13)

Paul warned that adikia would be repaid, writing that God would give to

those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey ( present tense - continually persuaded by or having a settled conviction regarding) unrighteousness (adikia), wrath and indignation (i.e., eternal damnation and separation from the Righteous One)."  (see note Romans 2:8) The "means" justify their "end"!

Paul again warns that all are to

be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure (approved of it, thought well of it, were well-pleased) in wickedness  (adikia)." (2 Thes 2:12) Notice that the opposite of believing the truth is a life of wickedness.

In his last letter, Paul exhorts...

everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain (aorist imperative - a command to be obeyed not a suggestion) from wickedness (adikia). (2 Timothy 2:19)" Those who are truly the Lord's are no longer free to sin wantonly, living licentiously, but are commanded to separate from unrighteousness which stresses the believer's need for holiness and speaks of each believer's responsibility. It follows that if one is continually pursuing adikia they have cause to question the "sure foundation" of their salvation.

God provides a way to deal with adikia, John recording that...

"f we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)                                                                                     

Wickedness (4189) (poneria) describes the state or condition of a lack of moral or social values, wickedness, baseness, maliciousness, sinfulness. This word describes perverseness and denotes the bad instinct of the heart. Poneria is the general inclination to evil that reigned among the pagans, and made them practice and take pleasure in vicious and unprofitable actions.

Barclay has an interesting note writing that...

In Greek this word means more than badness. There is a kind of badness which, in the main, hurts only the person concerned. It is not essentially an outgoing badness. When it hurts others, as all badness must, the hurt is not deliberate. It may be thoughtlessly cruel, but it is not callously cruel. But the Greeks defined poneria as the desire of doing harm. It is the active, deliberate will to corrupt and to inflict injury. When the Greeks described a woman as ponēra they meant that she deliberately seduced the innocent from their innocence. In Greek one of the commonest titles of Satan is ho poneros, the evil one, the one who deliberately attacks and aims to destroy the goodness of men. Poneros describes the man who is not only bad but wants to make everyone as bad as himself. Poneria is destructive badness. (Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible Series, Rev. ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press or Logos)

Webster adds some interesting thoughts on "wicked" (English word being derived from "wicca" meaning sorcerer) including "morally very bad, marked by mischief, disgustingly unpleasant, causing or likely to cause harm, distress, or trouble."

Greed (KJV "covetousness") (4124) (pleonexia from pleíon = more + écho = to have) (Click additional discussion of pleonexia) means literally "to have more" and describes a strong desire to acquire more and more material possessions (the "itch for more").  The Greeks defined  pleonexia as “arrogant greediness,” as “the accursed love of possessing,” as “the unlawful desire for the things which belong to others.” It is the spirit in which a man is always ready to sacrifice his neighbor to his own desires. It describes an insatiable desire and it has been said that you might as easily satisfy it as you might fill with water a bowl with a hole in it. 

Barclay says that pleonexia...

is built up of two words which mean to have more. The Greeks themselves defined pleonexia as the accursed love of having. It is an aggressive vice. It has been described as the spirit which will pursue its own interests with complete disregard for the rights of others, and even for the considerations of common humanity. Its keynote is rapacity. Theodoret, the Christian writer, describes it as the spirit that aims at more, the spirit which grasps at things which it has no right to take. It may operate in every sphere of life. If it operates in the material sphere, it means grasping at money and goods, regardless of honour and honesty. If it operates in the ethical sphere, it means the ambition which tramples on others to gain something which is not properly meant for it. If it operates in the moral sphere, it means the unbridled lust which takes its pleasure where it has no right to take. Pleonexia is the desire which knows no law. (Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible Series, Rev. ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press or Logos)

The basic idea of pleonexia is the desire for that which a man has no right to have. It is, therefore, a sin with a very wide range. If it is the desire for money, it leads to theft. If it is the desire for prestige, it leads to evil ambition. If it is the desire for power, it leads to sadistic tyranny. If it is the desire for a person, it leads to sexual sin.

Haldane writes that pleonexia originally referred to

taking the advantage, overreaching in a bargain, having more than what is just in any transaction with our neighbor. Of this, covetousness is the motive. This was universal among rich and poor, and was the spring of all their actions. (Haldane, R: An Exposition of Romans)

Pleonexia is described as the equivalent of idolatry in (see exposition of Colossians 3:5) for covetousness puts things in the place of God..

C. F. D. Moule well describes it as "the opposite of the desire to give."

Evil (2549) (kakia) is deliberate wickedness which takes pleasure in doing harm. Kakia is the quality of wickedness, with the implication of that which is harmful or damaging. It is often translated in a narrow sense for malice, describing a deep-seated feelings against a person that includes hatred that lasts on and on. It is an intense and long-lasting bitterness against a person. It is actually wishing that something bad would happen to a person. Kakia means wickedness, a deliberate intention to harm (actively plotting revenge; passively mad when they are blessed and happy when they have misfortune).

Lightfoot describes kakia as “the vicious nature which is bent on doing harm to others”

One Greek scholar refers to kakia as “the vicious character generally.” To varying degrees, but inevitably, the unsaved person spends his life enveloped in and motivated by kakia.

Larry Richards writes that kakia

"is a flaw within us that keeps the best of us from being what we should be and what we want to be." (Richards, L O: Expository Dictionary of Bible Words: Regency)

John MacArthur says that...

kakia, denotes moral evil and corruption in general, especially in regard to intent. It pertains to sin that is deliberate and determined. It may reside in the heart for a long time before being expressed outwardly, and may, in fact, never be expressed outwardly. It therefore includes the many “hidden” sins that only the Lord and the individual are aware of. (Macarthur J. James. Moody or Logos)

Barclay writes that kakia is...

the most general Greek word for badness. It describes the case of a man who is destitute of every quality which would make him good. For instance, a kakos kritēs is a judge destitute of the legal knowledge and the moral sense and uprightness of character which are necessary to make a good judge. It is described by Theodoret as “the turn of the soul to the worse.” The word he uses for turn is ropē which means the turn of the balance. A man who is kakos is a man the swing of whose life is towards the worse. Kakia has been described as the essential viciousness which includes all vice and as the forerunner of all other sins. It is the degeneracy out of which all sins grow and in which all sins flourish. (Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible Series, Rev. ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press or Logos)

FULL OF ENVY, MURDER, STRIFE, DECEIT, MALICE: mestous phthonou phonou eridos dolou kakoetheias:

Full (3324) (mestos) signifies full up, full to the utmost, "stuffed"! Mestos is generally makes reference to that of or with which a person or thing is full.

Mestos is used 9 times in NASB, most often in a figurative sense describing being full to the utmost with good and bad moral qualities: "are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" Mt 23:28;  "full of goodness" Ro 15:14; "tongue...full of deadly poison" Ja 3:8 , "wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits" Ja 3:17 ; false teachers "having eyes full of adultery" 2Pe 2:14. The literal uses describe a "jar full of sour wine" John 19:29 and a "net...full of large fish" John 21:11.

Envy (5355) (phthonos) is an attitude of ill-will that leads to division and strife and even murder. (cp Mt 27:18)  Tacitus remarks that this was the usual vice of the villages, towns, and cities. (Click for in depth study of phthonos)

Vine says

Envy differs from jealousy in that the former desires merely to deprive another of what he has, whereas the latter desires as well to have the same, or a similar, thing for itself." Trench, calls it “the meaner sin” of the two.

Barclay says

"There is...envy which is essentially a grudging thing. It looks at a fine person, and is not so much moved to aspire to that fineness, as to resent it. It is the most warped and twisted of human emotions.... a mean word. Euripides called it “the greatest of all diseases among men". The essence of it is that it does not describe the spirit which desires, nobly or ignobly, to have what someone else has; it describes the spirit which grudges the fact that the other person has these things at all. It does not so much want the things for itself; it merely wants to take them from the other. The Stoics defined it as “grief at someone else’s good.” Basil called it “grief at your neighbor’s good fortune.” It is the quality, not so much of the jealous, but rather of the embittered mind.”  (Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible series, Rev. ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press)

The godly Scottish preacher Andrew Bonar penned a diary entry. He wrote, “This day 20 years ago I preached for the first time as an ordained minister. It is amazing that the Lord has spared me and used me at all. I have no reason to wonder that He used others far more than He does me. Yet envy is my hurt, and today I have been seeking grace to rejoice exceedingly over the usefulness of others, even where it cast me into the shade. Lord, take away this envy from me!”

F. B. Meyer held meetings in Northfield, Mass., and large crowds thronged to hear him. Then the great British Bible teacher G. Campbell Morgan came to Northfield and people were soon flocking to hear his brilliant expositions of scripture. Meyer confessed at first he was envious. He said, “The only way I can conquer my feelings is to pray for Morgan daily, which I do.”

Dwight L. Moody once told the fable of an eagle who was envious of another that could fly better than he could. One day the bird saw a sportsman with a bow and arrow and said to him, “I wish you would bring down that eagle up there.” The man said he would if he had some feathers for his arrow. So the jealous eagle pulled one out of his wing. The arrow was shot, but it didn’t quite reach the rival bird because he was flying too high. The first eagle pulled out another feather, then another—until he had lost so many that he himself couldn’t fly. The archer took advantage of the situation, turned around, and killed the helpless bird. Moody made this application: if you are envious of others, the one you will hurt the most by your actions will be yourself.

Envy - is it a small sin? Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered Him. (cp