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1 Corinthians 6:12-20

You can read the text here.

Paul continues to address issues related to sexual immorality in the church debunking some false conceptions that they seem to have that Paul expresses in a series of quotations in the first couple of verses. Now the starting and stopping point of the quotations is tricky to determine and I will go with Thiselton and Ciampa and Rosner and re-punctuate the NRSV as follows:

12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 

Apparently the Corinthians believed that a) the body was transitory and b) their freedom from the Law meant they had no moral obligations in terms of bodily behaviors which extended as far as sexual behavior. In fact, the stomach is for food! Why bother having the parts if you're not using them! Paul responds, admonishing them that he only serves one master, the Lord, not his appetites. For the Lord is Lord of his body, not sex, and that body will be raised one day, it's not transient, so what one does in the body matters!

Paul ups the ante, reminding them that they are all corporately part of Christ's body, so what they do with their own "members" affects the body as a whole. Sexual union for a Christian brings the one we have sex with into union with Christ's body.[1] Sex with a prostitute violates Christ, the person's body, and the Spirit.[2] A very serious issue indeed, more serious than one might expect.

As has become clear, Paul is deeply concerned with seeing the Corinthians reform their sex lives. Sex is not just about the physical, because our bodies house the Holy Spirit individually and corporately, so there is a corporate responsibility to holiness that sex with the wrong person defiles in a unique sense because of the deep unions that are formed. And it doesn't just defile the person, it defiles the temple and hence, implicitly the whole church. We don't have the right to live to gratify or 'use' our flesh how we want to. Jesus paid a high price for us, so now we belong to him, he is our master, so we must live in a way that honors him as Lord of our bodies.


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[1] While I do believe Paul had in mind prostitutes in the temples (not necessarily sacred prostitutes, just prostitutes who worked in the temples), his argument seems to suggest a grounding that has broader applicability and seem to argue against sex with people who are not Christians generally, though Paul does seem to be going for a bit of a jolt here so I would remain tentative. See both Thiselton and Ciampa and Rosner for more details on Paul's precise target.

[2] Ciampa and Rosner suggest that the degredation of our union with the Spirit surpasses the violation of the one flesh union of marriage in seriousness.

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