1 Corinthians 6:12-20

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

All things are permitted for me, but all things are not to my advantage.  All things are permitted for me, but I will not be ruled by anything.  Food for the stomach and the stomach for food.  But God will utterly destroy both of these.  The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.  And God raised the Lord and he will raise us through His power.  Have you all not known that your bodies are members of Christ?  Therefore after removing the members of Christ should I make them members of a prostitute?  Let it not be so!  Or have you not known that the one who becomes joined to a prostitute is one body?  For it is said, “The two will be one flesh.”  And the one who becomes joined to the Lord is one spirit.  Flee from sexual immorality!  Every sin that a person should do is outside the body.  But the one who commits sexual immorality sins into his own body.  Or have you not known that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit– whom you all have from God – within you all?  And are you all your own?  For you all were being bought for a price.  Therefore glorify God in your body.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Paul speaks about all things being permitted, but not all things are to his advantage.  Paul isn’t saying that he has carte blanche on everything in the world.  Paul is not giving permission to sin!  Rather, Paul is speaking metaphorically.  For example, take eating.  Paul can eat everything that he wants.  But he knows that while he can eat, he needs to be careful.  He shouldn’t eat things that offend the people around him.  Nor should he eat so much that he cannot go throughout the world proclaiming his message.  Or take sex.  Paul knows that sex is permitted for him, but in the circumstances of marriage.  Just because sex is permitted does not mean that all sex is permitted in every shape and form.  The same argument can be made for just about anything.  Everything is permitted, but not all circumstances make permitted actions beneficial to our life.

Can you think of another action that is beneficial in one circumstance but detrimental in another?  What does this line of thought actually say to us regarding our need to be a people of discernment rather than absolute rules?

Second Thought:

In the middle of this passage Paul talks to us about spiritual life.  He does this through the comparison of our Lord and a prostitute.  Notice his words.  The one who becomes joined to a prostitute is one body; but the one who becomes joined to the Lord is one spirit.  Paul is contrasting life in the flesh versus life in the Spirit.  He is contrasting the finite with the infinite.  He is telling the Corinthians that it is one thing to make choices for the benefit of this world: choices of physical pleasure and fleeting consequence.  But it is another thing entirely to make choices that will last into the spiritual realm: the realm of the eternal.  It is a matter of choice.  Would we rather tie ourselves to the temporal things of this life or would we rather tie ourselves to Christ and the life to come?

Where do your loyalties lie?  Are you a part of this world or the world to come?  How does this play out in your priorities?

Third Thought:

At the end of this passage Paul asks a really neat question.  Are you your own person?  In other words, are you free to make your own decisions?  Are we not all bought by Christ at the cost of His own life?  If we are bought, then am I really free to do as I please in any circumstance?  No.  Paul’s teaching is clear.  While we are free from sin through Christ, we are bought by God.  We are to do His will.  We are to commit ourselves not to our own vain pursuits but rather to His will and His glory.

Are you committed to doing the will of God?  How does that live out in your life?

Passage for Tomorrow: 1 Corinthians 7:1-7