Yesterday had us considering what it could look like to risk getting hurt for the sake of other people. Without Jesus, few people would really think about putting their safety and security on the line for other people. And we’re not done yet.
In the rest of chapter 6, Paul tackles another thing people rarely deny themselves—sex.
We’ve already covered how promiscuous the Corinthian culture was. People flocked to temple prostitutes, men had multiple wives, and the general population erred on the side of pleasure.
The world today isn’t much different from the Corinthians. Sexual pleasure still rules the day. It pops up in our ads, TV shows, books, movies, and conversations. Porn, sex abuse, and affairs don’t startle us anymore. They’re just part of everyday life. It’s tragic but true.
Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.
12You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. 13You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 14And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead. 15Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” 17But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 18Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
Paul’s words in this passage are harsh and grotesque because the Corinthians’ actions are harsh and grotesque. Sexual immorality has no place among God’s people. Jesus paid everything for us. Our lives—and our bodies—are now his. Turning to sexual sin is like smacking Jesus in the face.
So, Paul says, “Flee! Run from sexual sin!”
He even goes as far as to say that when we engage in any type of sexual immorality, we bring Christ with us. He uses the example of uniting Jesus with a prostitute to shock the Corinthians.
What’s your reaction to Paul’s example? In your own words, what’s Paul saying about the Corinthians’ actions through this choice of illustration?
The Corinthians’ actions defile Jesus. The church. Themselves.
Our culture argues for pleasure, acceptance, and romantic love wherever it can be found. As Jesus’s people, though, we keep sex within the good bounds God has set for it—marriage. It’s not easy and people outside the church think we’re crazy.
We have to take sexual sin seriously. We cannot let it seep into our lives. If we allow it in, it only brings destruction.
Spend the next few minutes journaling through the following questions.
Where do you see sexual temptation at play in your life? When is it the most tempting? What tempts you the most?
What could it look like for us to flee sexual immorality? What kinds of steps could a person take to weed out sexual sin in their life?
Remember the big idea Paul’s advocating for in 1 Corinthians—Christians need each other. If you’re struggling with a habitual sexual sin, get help. Tell a trusted Christian friend. Find support through your church. The Christian life is risky, but it’s not a solo journey.
Text your response to the above prompting questions to your group and/or share it as a comment below
The Bible doesn’t mess around when it comes to sexual immorality. I believe this is the only sin in the Bible that God tells us to run from. It is so powerful and hard for us that God doesn’t even want us to even get near it. I have taken this advice and put it into practice in my life and especially now since I am married, it is even more important. I don’t believe most people go about looking to be sexually immoral but the world paints such an attractive picture of sex and making it such an idol that it can be hard to avoid. It seems God knows how susceptible we can be so His guidance is to run. For me that means avoiding any unnecessary contact with the opposite sex and also never putting myself into situations where anything like that is remotely possible or even could be seen as such. It also means avoiding any sort of content that has to do with anything related to sexual temptation; which can be hard nowadays since sex is such a pervasive thing in our society. I’m sure some would say that it is overkill to have such policies in place but I always believe it is better to be safe than sorry especially in situations such as these.
It is really crazy that the Corinthians had lived up to a culture that’s almost mirrored or worse today. I mean quite honestly, it’s pretty bad today. I know so first hand from my transition from high school to “college” I quotation it cause I didn’t really take college seriously until more recently. But I was apart of this culture and from the looks of it, it seemed to at i got into it right before the rise of everything around us. Now we have people literally quitting their jobs to be “models” on Instagram when all they are doing is having an onlyfans to post explicit pictures on there. Then to add onto it, there are so many men and women now just indulged in this online modern day prostitution act. I mean they’re selling items, selling photos of their body, who knows what else they are exchanging. Then you have social media openly accepting this new hook up culture with musicians freely talking about it like it’s nothing. Making meme words like situationship. Friends with benefit. It’s really crazy that the Corinthians had a similar culture. Like I thought what we’re living in today is nuts. So I would say what’s tempting? Social media, secular music, and the list goes on. Some of the reason I saw for this starts with selfishness. Some people do it for money, some people do it because they want that window of feeling loved and then after that want to go back to worrying about themselves. People don’t want to deal with the hardships that come with relationships, they are impatient and want a quick fix. This selfishness comes from a lack of God obviously. So this sounds obvious and I can’t think of any other steps to begin weeding out sexual sin and it’s to begin to get to know God and to know how much your relationship with him matters.