1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Use your bodies in a good way

12 Some of you believers may say, ‘I am free to do anything that I want to do.’ That may be true, but not everything will help you. I could say, ‘I am free to do the things that I want to do.’ Yes, but I will not let anything rule over me.

13 Some of you may say, ‘God made food to feed our bodies. That is why people have stomachs. But one day God will destroy both stomachs and food.’ Yes, but the Lord gave our bodies to us. Our bodies belong to the Lord. So you should not use your bodies to have sex in a wrong way. 14 God raised the Lord Jesus after he died. And God will use his power to make us alive again too.

6:13Some of the believers were saying that it did not matter what they did with their bodies, because one day God would destroy them. Paul says that God gave us our bodies. We should use our bodies in a way that pleases God. We must not use our bodies in a bad way.
6:14Paul shows that our bodies are important, because God will raise us to a new life with him.

15 You know that your bodies are parts of Christ's own body. So you must never take your body and make it join with a prostitute's body. That is like you have done it with part of Christ's body. Never let that happen! 16 Anyone who makes his own body join to a prostitute becomes one body with that prostitute. You should know that. It says in the Bible:

‘The man and the woman become as one body.’

6:16See Genesis 2:24.

17 But everyone who is united to the Lord has the same spirit as him. 18 So never have sex in a wrong way! You may say, ‘If a person does a bad thing, it is not his body that does it.’ But if you have sex in a wrong way, you are doing a bad thing to your own body. 19 Remember this: Your body is the home of God's Holy Spirit. God gave his Holy Spirit to you and he lives in you. You do not belong to yourselves any longer. 20 God bought you for himself. He paid the price for you. So use your body to show how great God is.

6:20God's Son, Jesus, died on the cross as a sacrifice on our behalf. This is the price that God paid so that we could belong to him.