Not My Own | Week 1: Body

Why does Paul answer the slogan about everything being permissible with a question about what he will be mastered by?

Paul lets the Corinthians keep their freedom slogan and then puts a second question beside it. Permission settles whether a thing is allowed; mastery settles who is running the person who does it. A man can defend every right he has and still be owned by the thing he insists on.

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything. “Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.

1 Corinthians 6:12–14

Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. A bondservant doesn’t live in the house forever. A son remains forever. If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:34–36

Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.

Romans 6:16–18

Why does Paul argue that the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, before he calls it a temple of the Holy Spirit?

Paul does not start with a rule. He starts with a claim about what the body was made for and who was raised in one. Jesus rose in a body, and Paul says God will raise the Corinthians in theirs too, so the body is not a temporary container to be used up.

“Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power. Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:13–17

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.

1 Corinthians 15:42–44

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews therefore said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! Will you raise it up in three days?” But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

John 2:19–22

What does it mean that the Corinthians were bought at a price, and why does Paul use purchase rather than duty to make his case?

Paul reaches for the language of a slave market and says the Corinthians were bought. They did not drift into belonging to God; someone paid to bring them out of another master's hands. For a church full of slaves and freedmen, the picture was not abstract.

Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20

The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it. For he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the floods.

Psalms 24:1–2

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1–2

Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Exodus 6:6–7