All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, however God will do away with both of them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Far from it! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

The most obvious statement is that actions produce results. You push on a door, it opens. You hit a brick wall, you break a finger. This is not what the Bible is for; Paul doesn’t take time to let the reader know that if you have sex, there are consequences. Knowing you can get pregnant, for example, is common sense.

Paul was setting out to tell his readers that sexual sin had a specific, unseen, and important consequence beyond any immediate material repercussions.

Sex, and by extension sexual sin, is an intimate action. The ones who engage in it are not only involved in the decision to undertake it but also involve someone else. There isn’t any sexual sin, except for lust, which doesn’t involve another person. And for the Christian, there is another party involved. “But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord”; because we acknowledge that we are God’s people, partaking in sexual sin takes something we dedicate to God away from Him and gives it to someone else.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

This requires that we place a higher priority on our dedication to God than our own self-satisfaction. This is not always easy, but it is always right.

That’s the key takeaway here, and I want to drive the point home. Obedience to God is not about avoiding pain or trouble in our lives here and now. If we achieve that outcome, we benefit, but it is not the goal. We do what He asks because He asks, not because of what it gets us. We have promised ourselves to Jesus in so many ways and to take anything away hurts our relationship to Him.

Ethan Kirl

Originally Published June 3, 2021