1 Cor 6:12-20
SS Lesson for 08/10/2025
Devotional Scripture: Rom 6:9-18
My best friend from the first day of high school was Tony. We shared a vibrant faith. We led Bible studies together and even started a band. His father was the minister of a large church in our area and a highly respected member of the community. The summer before our senior year, Tony’s personality began to shift. He became sullen and isolated. He abruptly quit the band, stopped attending our Bible studies, and didn’t return my calls. After weeks of being avoided, I drove to his house. His father answered the door. A woman stood next to him, with her hand on his shoulder. She was not Tony’s mother. I was told that Tony was staying with his mother. Tony’s dad quickly gave me the address and shut the door. I went to the apartment building where Tony, his mother, and his siblings had moved. Tony answered my knock on the door. When he saw me, he burst into tears and threw himself into my arms. I held him as he cried. We sat at the kitchen table, and he told me everything. His father had met another woman online, invited her to live with him, and asked for a divorce from Tony’s mother. The children had sided with their mother, so their father told them all to leave. For momentary pleasures, this man had destroyed his marriage, ruined his relationship with his children, and lost the goodwill of his church and the wider community. Though joined to his wife as one flesh, he had torn them apart.
We’re now in our second lesson from 1 Corinthians. The difference is that today’s lesson deals with the touchy subject of sexual immorality. For proper context, we need to be aware of how the standards of morality in the Greco-Roman culture of the first century AD differed from those of today. One such difference was in how prostitution was viewed. In most cities today, prostitution is seen as illegal. However, the culture of the Mediterranean world of the first century did not see it this way. Expectations regarding marital fidelity were more for the wife than the husband, a double standard. Public parties might include prostitutes to entertain the men after the wives were excused from the banquet. The majority culture of the day considered this behavior acceptable. Shockingly, some members of the church at Corinth were engaging in illicit sexual activity that even the pagan Gentiles disapproved of (1 Corinthians 5:1)! Paul would not stand for this, for he saw sexual sin as a threat to the unity and purity of the entire body of Christ. By contrast, Paul taught a different view of what constituted sexual immorality, today’s lesson.
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
(Scriptural Text from the New King James Version; cross-references from the NIV)
12 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
14 And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!
16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh."
3 Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
6 And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.
13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.'"
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.
8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did — and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
23 Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you — guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
Some may wish to restrict the application of Paul’s teaching in our text just to the prohibition of sex with a prostitute. I do not think we dare narrow the application in such a way. After all, it is Paul who applies an Old Testament text on oxen to meeting the needs of those who preach (see 1 Corinthians 9:4-14)! I believe Paul addresses sexual immorality with a prostitute because this is a very common sin in Corinth, even among the saints, and it is a sin the church does not take seriously enough. Paul takes the most “casual” sin (in the minds of the Corinthians) and shows it to be utterly sinful; how much more are any other sexual sins condemned? Just because one is saved and spiritually alive is no reason to take our actions in the flesh lightly. We should be greatly informed by the way Paul engages in “sex education.” The term, “sex education” is highly charged with emotion on the part of some Christians, and rightly so. I simply point out to you what Paul’s curriculum consists of in 1 Corinthians. Paul does not describe in intimate detail the nature and practice of immorality. To do so might become a temptation for us. Paul does not seek to prevent sexual immorality among Christians by frightening them with the physical adverse consequences, like pregnancy, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases. Paul, as always, goes back to the gospel. Paul’s argument for sexual morality is rooted in sound doctrine, specifically the doctrines which pertain to salvation. The gospel is the basis for sexual (and every other kind of) morality. Note also that Paul could very quickly deal with the Corinthians’ immorality by simply referring to the rules. Not only is sexual immorality forbidden by the Old Testament law, it is forbidden by our Lord and by the Jerusalem Council. In Acts 15, sexual immorality was one of the four things specifically forbidden to the Gentiles (see “fornication” in Acts 15:19-21, 28-29). Immorality was “against the rules,” but Paul wants the Corinthians not just to keep the rules, but to consciously serve God by doing that which is consistent with our calling, with the gospel, and with sound doctrine. It is necessary to keep the rules, but let us do so for the right reasons. Here, Paul gives us the reasons for sexual purity. The problem of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church is due, in part, to the fact that such conduct is not considered sinful or illegal by the pagan Corinthian culture. The Corinthians seem to live more in conformity to the standards of their culture than to the standard set by Christ. If a certain practice is legal, some Corinthian Christians seem to think it is moral. The Bible has a much higher set of standards than this. If something is illegal, it is almost always immoral for the Christian (except for those few times when the law forbade what God commands—e.g. Acts 5:29). When the laws of the land allow certain forms of conduct, we must ask ourselves if that practice is permitted in the Scriptures. For example, the law may allow immorality, but the Bible forbids it. Then there are those things which both the law and the Bible allow. These “liberties” may or may not be advisable for the Christian. The use of any Christian liberty should be subject to the following questions:
1) Does this practice contribute to my own spiritual growth and maturity?
2) Does this practice contribute to the growth and maturity of fellow-believers?
3) Does this practice further the gospel?
4) Does this practice glorify God?
Liberties are those things which the Bible says I am free to do. If any matter is really a liberty, it is something I am as free not to do as I am free to do. I should be free not to do anything which is a liberty. If I am not free, it is not really a liberty. If I am not free, then in Paul’s words, I am “mastered by” it. Let’s assume that eating popcorn is a Christian liberty. If I cannot control my appetite for popcorn so as not to eat it, then I am in bondage to popcorn. I know of people who say something like this: “Oh, I can quit any time I want. I’ve done it a hundred times.” Whatever we can’t stop doing is probably something which masters us. Paul’s commitment is not to let his body master him, but to become the master of his body (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Our text has something very definitive to say on the subject of abortion. One of the classic arguments of the pro-abortion movement is that “the woman’s body is her own private possession,” so that no one (not even government) can tell her what to do with her body. Of course, the pro-abortion movement views the unborn child as merely a part of the woman’s body. Thus, the woman is free to do whatever she wishes with that unborn child, including killing it. Paul’s words deny the very premise on upon which the pro-abortion position is based (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The woman’s body is not her own, not to mention the child she carries within. She is not free to use her body as she chooses. The Christian should realize that the body is not to be employed for self-gratification (most often, immorality is the cause of an unwanted pregnancy), but for the glory of God. Paul’s words in our text will certainly be judged “foolish” by those who wish to live in sin. Our text reminds me that it is only the Christian who values sex highly enough. The unbelieving world likes to look down on the Christian, as though we have no appreciation for sex, as though we think sex is evil, or at least unspiritual. The truth is that only a Christian can appreciate the true value of sex. In the Bible, the sexual union is a part of the marriage relationship, and this relationship portrays or symbolizes the union of Christ and His church. If sex is a kind of symbol, and what it symbolizes is the ultimate value—the ultimate good—then sex is a most benevolent gift and privilege. It is a great blessing.
The Christian sanctifies sex by restricting it to the sanctity of the marriage bed (Hebrews 13:4) and only to one’s spouse. Those who degrade sex make it common. The word “profane” and the word “common” are nearly synonymous in the Bible. Those who restrict sexual intimacy to their marriage partner value it most highly. Those who indiscriminately engage in sex make it common and profane. Let me illustrate. My wife has a set of special dishes. These dishes are more expensive and more beautiful than our other dishes. The special dishes are saved for special occasions. They are not used as often as our “everyday” dishes. Nobody gets upset if an everyday dish is dropped and broken. But there is a little more consternation if a special dish is broken. That which is most precious is used with greater discrimination than that which is common or profane. I have a fairly large collection of tools. Most of my tools I am willing to loan out to others. Some are restricted to a much smaller group. My micrometers, for example, are not generally available for borrowers. This is because they are delicate, precise, and expensive tools. I do not want these tools abused, and so I restrict their use. On the other hand, I’ll loan a crescent wrench to virtually anyone. What is most valued is most restricted; that which is least valued is commonly available. God values sex, and so should we, which is why it is restrictive for the Christian. A prostitute makes sex profane, common.
A book in our library is entitled, Need, the New Religion. In the self-indulgent society in which we live, need has become a compelling reason for our actions. If we think we “need” something, then it is only reasonable that this need be met. The vast majority of the advertising before us on television and in other forms of the media, seeks to convince us that we have a need, and that their product is the answer to this need. What every man and woman needs is the forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life, through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. There is no higher need. And the only fulfillment of this “need” is salvation. God calls on us to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son. We must admit that we are sinners, in need of forgiveness and justification by God’s grace alone. All other needs pale into insignificance in comparison to this need. Let us look to Christ to satisfy this need, and every other need as well. Jesus Christ is all we really need. And having Him by faith, we shall turn away from sexual immorality. Is it possible that you have already fallen, that you are already guilty of sexual immorality? There is forgiveness through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. The good news is that those who have made themselves sexually “unclean” can be cleansed completely. This can be seen in the forgiveness granted the woman at the well in John 4, or in the forgiveness of the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8). It can also be seen in the saints at Corinth (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Perhaps Paul’s words can best be summed up by Paul, as he writes to the Philippians:
17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself (Philippians 3:19-21).
(Adapted from URL:https://bible.org/seriespage/relationship-between-spirituality-and-sexual-morality-1-cor-612-20)
Here’s the conclusion to the story we opened the lesson with. My friend Tony did not speak to his father for five years. Tony went on to college, played on a Division III basketball team, and met his future wife. He avoided thinking or talking about his dad. Then, one day, his dad called him and asked to meet for lunch. When they met, Tony refused to hug his father or even shake his hand. As they sat at the table, Tony prepared a laundry list of grievances. But his dad was there to apologize. He admitted that he had wronged his wife and children. He begged Tony for forgiveness. His father’s contrition moved Tony, and he quickly set aside his anger. But he had to ask one thing: Why had his father done it? His father offered multiple explanations without excusing his actions. But one in particular stood out. He said, “I felt like my life wasn’t my own anymore.” Tony looked into his dad’s eyes and said, “It wasn’t yours to begin with.” The thrust of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 6:12–20 is that believers do not have full authority over their lives. We are members of Christ’s body. We are a temple of the Holy Spirit. We belong to God and must act in ways that glorify God. God calls us to live as those who belong to him. That requires our willingness to resist temptations. And forms of temptation exist today that did not exist in Paul’s day. Yet the principles Paul teaches remain useful in combating these temptations. Paul encouraged his readers to embrace and live in their identities as Christ’s body and the Holy Spirit’s temple. We, too, can and must help ourselves and our children walk in a way that is consistent with the identity God has given us. It is noteworthy that Paul did not simply reject the slogans of the Corinthians. Nor did he merely give them commands without explanation. He granted that they did indeed possess freedom in Christ. But how were they best using those freedoms? And in what way are we accomplishing this?