Lutheran Seminary's God Pause "Moved by the Promise" Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States for Wednesday, 14 January 2015 - Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6: Honor God with Your Body12 Some of you say, “We can do anything we want to.” But I tell you that not everything is good for us. So I refuse to let anything have power over me. 13 You also say, “Food is meant for our bodies, and our bodies are meant for food.” But I tell you that God will destroy them both. We are not supposed to do indecent things with our bodies. We are to use them for the Lord who is in charge of our bodies. 14 God will raise us from death by the same power that he used when he raised our Lord to life.
15 Don’t you know that your bodies are part of the body of Christ? Is it right for me to join part of the body of Christ to a prostitute? No, it isn’t! 16 Don’t you know that a man who does that becomes part of her body? The Scriptures say, “The two of them will be like one person.” 17 But anyone who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit with him.
18 Don’t be immoral in matters of sex. That is a sin against your own body in a way that no other sin is. 19 You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own. 20 God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.[Contemporary English Version]
Paul's letter to the Corinthians addresses issues of belonging in a community. He uses a common phrase for belonging—being "in Christ." The phrase "in Christ" for Paul connects the reader to the faith in which they were baptized.
As Paul addresses the implications of damaging behavior within and outside the Corinthian faith community, in this case fornication, he is always making the important connection of what it means to be "in Christ"—to know that our lives are grafted into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The promises held in our faith in Jesus empower and transform our lives each day so we may be united in the community of those who belong to God.
God of Life, just as your Spirit worked among the tensions and brokenness of the early church, so, too, we ask for your promises and Spirit to keep us unified in Christ and in the promises of our baptism. Amen.
Matthew A. Maas
Pastor/Chaplain, Swedish Medical Center
Seattle, Wash.
Master of Divinity , 2010
1 Corinthians 6:12 "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything.
13 "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, "The two shall be one flesh."
17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?
20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.[The Revised Standard Version]
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