Here, Paul circles back around to discuss again the question of sexual immorality in the Corinth church. This was a particularly important issue in the church. Corinth was a port city, and we all know what this means. To address that particularly strong demand, Corinth had the temple of Aphrodite – essentially a spiritualized brothel, with perhaps a thousand temple prostitutes, primarily slaves.
The argument of the Corinthians was essentially that they had Christian liberty, and could do whatever they wanted and still be forgiven. There may also have been a Gnostic bent – with all physical activities being evil, what does the specific activity matter?
Paul takes this argument apart. First, the body is not evil, but indeed a holy, set apart tool of Christ’s to achieve his purposes. Beyond that, we are indeed a part of Christ’s body, and our behavior is inextricably linked to him. The monogamous marriage relationship is the God-ordained vehicle for sexual intimacy, and such activity outside those bounds is a sin against your own body.
In our culture today, this notion of sexual morality is anathema. Because the sin is a sin against our own body, the notion of judging sexual immorality does not fit into the prevailing societal morality. With sexual immorality, whether virtual or even actual, now accessible immediately via any smartphone, the sexual ethic of the world around us is becoming increasingly warped with ultimate consequences that we cannot predict.
What does this mean for us? Like in Corinth, we live in a sex-saturated society where a biblical sexual ethic makes us if not outcasts than certainly extremely unusual.
Within the church, though, we still have damaging strains of thought like they did in Corinth. On one hand, the framing by much of the “purity movement” of sex as a dirty, damaging activity that will taint you forever is clearly missing the grace of Christ. On the other hand, the notion from some Christian quarters that sex outside marriage can be acceptable is an abuse and misunderstanding of that.
God is not a killjoy. (Paul may be, admittedly.) Rather, He seeks to ensure that we enjoy His gift of sexuality to the fullest in the context for which He created it. We are not our own – we were bought with a price.
– Sermon Notes, Dave Lester, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
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