Summary of 1 Corinthians 6:9-20:
The wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God: adulterers, prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, slanderers, homosexuals, etc. The Corinthians were these things but they have been sanctified by Jesus and the Spirit of God.
Paul refutes common Corinthian sayings with the body is God’s. It does not belong to man. It is a member of Christ himself. Why unite Christ with a prostitute? We need to unite ourself with the Lord instead.
Paul advises to flee from sexual immorality because this sin is against his own body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are not our own. Jesus bought us with a price. We must honor God with our bodies.
BSF Study Questions Acts Lesson 22, Day 4: 1 Corinthians 6:9-20
9) Sexual purity matters because our bodies are members of Christ himself, so when you commit sexual immorality, you are uniting your body with another and becoming one, but our bodies are meant to be united with the Lord’s as one in spirit. Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are not our own; they are gifts from God.
10) He is concerned that some people will think they will inherit the earth (eternal life), but the sexual immoral will not.
11) Personal Question. My answer: Temptation of sin. To avoid sexual sin.
BSF Study Questions Acts Lesson 22, Day 4: 1 Corinthians 6:9-20
This is one of my favorite all time Bible passages. Remembering how our bodies are temples and are gifts from God that we must use to honor Him.
BSF Study Questions Acts Lesson 22, Day 4: 1 Corinthians 6:9-20
Paul isn’t questioning the fact that the man will still go to heaven; he’s questioning if the man is a Christian at all since he continues to indulge in sin.
This passage is against homosexuality. Homosexuality was rampant in the ancient world; 14 out of the first 15 Roman emperors were bisexual or homosexual. At the very time Paul wrote, Nero was emperor. Nero castrated a boy named Sporus and then married him (with a full ceremony), brought him to the palace with a great procession, and made the boy his “wife.” Later, the emperor lived with another man, and Nero was declared to be the other man’s “wife.”
God’s great work for us in Jesus Christ is described in three terms.
- You were washed: We are washed clean from sin by the mercy of God (Titus 3:5). We can have our sins washed away by calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 22:16). We are washed by the work of Jesus on the cross for us (Revelation 1:5) and by the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26).
- You were sanctified: We are set apart, away from the world and unto God, by the work of Jesus on the cross (Hebrews 10:10), by God’s Word (John 17:19), by faith in Jesus (Acts 26:18), and by the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:16).
- You were justified: We are declared “just” before the court of God, not merely “not guilty,” but declared as “just” before Him. We are justified by God’s grace through the work of Jesus on the cross (Romans 3:24), by faith and not by our own deeds (Romans 3:28).
God can take the kind of people described in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10 and make them into the kind of people described in 1 Corinthians 6:11! How great is the work of God!
In the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God: Without trying to present a doctrine of the Trinity, Paul quite naturally lists the three Persons of the Godhead in connection with this great work of God in the life of the believer.
Sexual Purity
Paul tells the Corinthians exactly what he told the Colossians in Colossians 2:16-17: “When it comes to what we eat or drink or on what day we worship the Lord, all things are lawful for me. I am at liberty, and I should not let anyone put me under bondage, as legalists are prone to do.”
Specifically, from the reference to the harlot in 1 Corinthians 6:15, the Corinthian Christians thought they had the liberty to use the services of prostitutes. This was culturally accepted in the city of Corinth, and it was accepted in the religious community among the religious pagans, who saw nothing wrong in a “religious” person using prostitutes.
The Corinthian Christians probably used this motto to justify giving their bodies whatever their bodies wanted. “My body wants food, so I eat. My body wants sex, so I hire a prostitute. What’s the problem?”
Sin made our bodies immoral. There are prices to pay when using the body in ways never intended to. So what we do with our bodies in regard to food does not affect us in the same way as what we do with our bodies in regard to sex.
When an individual Christian commits sexual immorality, it disgraces the entire body of Christ, linking the body of Christ to immorality.
A husband and wife become “one flesh” in a way that is under God’s blessing in marital sex. In sex outside of marriage, the partners become “one flesh” in a way that is under God’s curse.
A person pursuing a casual sexual encounter may not want to become one flesh with their partner but in some spiritual sense, they do. Part of their self is given to that person, and it means there is less to give to the Lord and to the partner God intends for them.
Since we belong to Jesus – body, soul, and spirit – we have no right to give any part of our self away to an “unauthorized” person.
At the root of most lustful passion is the desire for love, acceptance, and adventure – all of which is far better, and more completely, satisfied in a one-spirit relationship with the Lord.
We should follow the example of Joseph, who fled from sexual immorality – even when it cost him something (Genesis 39:7-21).
God gave sex as a precious gift to mankind and uses it powerfully to bond husband and wife together in a true one-flesh relationship. So as Hebrews 13:4 says, the marriage bed is undefiled – the sexual relationship between husband and wife is pure, holy, and good before God.
Paul uses the Greek word porneia, which refers to a broad range of sexual sin. Sexual sin is physical, but it is also moral and spiritual.
If our bodies belong to Jesus, we also have no right to be idle with, or wasteful of, what belongs to Him. Our bodies should be put to use glorifying God.
God Himself lives within us. This means we have the strength, the power over the sins of the flesh living within us.