1 CORINTHIANS 6:12–20 - WEEK 2 - MOTIVATION FOR SEXUAL INTEGRITY

WEEK 2 - MOTIVATION FOR SEXUAL INTEGRITY

Thursday

1 CORINTHIANS 6:12–20 (NASB95)

12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

GLORIFY GOD IN OUR BODIES

An erroneous idea had slipped into the Corinthian church that the grace of God had become a license to ignore the moral laws of God. “All things are lawful” was a common Corinthian saying, and Paul uses some clever rhetoric to confront it with an appeal to what is profitable and what leads to true freedom.

Paul addresses the issue of immorality through a reasoned argument about the nature and purpose of human bodies. Our bodies are the Lord’s and are not meant to be joined together in immorality. Our bodies matter and they are members of Christ. Immorality is a sin against one’s own body. Our bodies have meaning and purpose. We are called to steward them as “temples of the Holy Spirit” to glorify God and to use them to serve the common good.

QUESTIONS

What are the two responses Paul has for the Corinthian claim that “all things are lawful?” (v.12)

Is there anything in your life that is mastering you? How should we respond to immorality? (v.18)

What does is mean that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?