13 You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

14-15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

16-20 There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

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13 (A)Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, however God will (B)do away with both [a]of them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but (C)for the Lord, and (D)the Lord is for the body. 14 Now God has not only (E)raised the Lord, but (F)will also raise us up through His power. 15 (G)Do you not know that (H)your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? [b](I)Far from it! 16 Or (J)do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “(K)The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is (L)one spirit with Him. 18 (M)Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the [c]sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or (N)do you not know that (O)your body is a [d]temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from [e]God, and that (P)you are not your own? 20 For (Q)you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in (R)your body.

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 6:13 Lit this and these
  2. 1 Corinthians 6:15 Lit May it never happen!
  3. 1 Corinthians 6:18 Or one who practices sexual immorality
  4. 1 Corinthians 6:19 Or sanctuary
  5. 1 Corinthians 6:19 Or God? And you...own