Stewarding Your Body

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Start with Application Testimony

[Give people an opportunity to share a testimony from last week’s exhortation]

Last week’s exhortation: Reflect on how you view your role in the body of Christ. Let this be a week of surrender, where you trade ego for obedience and isolation for connection.

INTRO

We are going verse-by-verse, in a topical study through I & II Corinthians

Current Topic: Becoming Mature - The personal discipline of becoming like Jesus

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen that spiritual maturity means saying no to sin and pursuing holiness, measuring ourselves by the standard of Christ’s love, and being willing to lay down our rights for the sake of others and the gospel. We’ve learned that we’re not self-made, but God-designed, with distinct roles that reflect His purpose.

Today in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, we’ll see that maturity means honoring our bodies as sacred vessels, designed by God for partnership and relationship with Him.

This passage very specifically addresses the issue of sexual immorality and it’s spiritual consequences, but we are also going to see how the concepts apply to how we use and treat our bodies as a whole.

We will come back to the first half of 1 Corinthians 6 in a later lesson, when we talk about church relationships.

READ

1 Corinthians 6:12–20 CSB

12 “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will do away with both of them. However, the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Don’t you know that your bodies are a part of Christ’s body? So should I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of a prostitute? Absolutely not! 16 Don’t you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For Scripture says, The two will become one flesh. 17 But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.

EXAMINE

#1 | Christian liberty is a responsibility, not a license.

Doing whatever you desire is a pathway to bondage, not an expression of freedom.

1 Corinthians 6:12 “‘Everything is permissible for me,’ but not everything is beneficial. “‘Everything is permissible for me,’ but I will not be mastered by anything.”

“Everything is permissible” had become a slogan that some Corinthians were using as a license to give in to their urges and cravings, but Paul warns that living this way only leads to being controlled by those same urges and cravings.

We have to follow our body’s design, not its appetite.

1 Corinthians 6:13 “‘Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food,’ and God will do away with both of them. However, the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

“Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food” was another slogan some Corinthians used - probably to justify giving in to their sexual appetites.

But this analogy didn’t work, as Paul pointed out, because they were comparing temporary things with eternal things.

Pleasure is something the body enjoys, but pleasure isn’t the reason the body exists (unlike the stomach for food). God has designed the human body to facilitate relationship and partnership with Him in this world.

#2 | Our physical bodies are sacred.

God’s plan of redemption, includes raising up our bodies to immortality.

1 Corinthians 6:14 “God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.”

God’s redemption of our bodies proves their eternal value and significance.

There is an ancient worldview called Gnostic Dualism, which basically sees the spiritual as all that really matters and deemphasizes the importance of our bodies and the physical world.

This is still a very common way of thinking (even in the Church) that is deeply unbiblical.

Our bodies now make up the physical Body of Christ here on Earth (a.k.a. the Church)

1 Corinthians 6:15 “Don’t you know that your bodies are a part of Christ’s body?...”

1 Corinthians 6:19 “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,”

Because Christ dwells in us, our physical bodies are made holy - and what we do with them carries even greater significance.

#3 | What we do with our physical bodies, matters spiritually.

Part of maturity is understanding this connection and the significance of it.

1 Corinthians 6:15 “...So should I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of a prostitute?”

When you do certain things with your body, you are also doing certain things spiritually.

1 Corinthians 6:18 “Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.”

Your body is God’s gift to you and when you use it for sin, you violate your body and its God-given purpose.

Just as we worship God with our hearts and minds, we must also see our bodies as instruments of worship.

1 Corinthians 6:20 “...you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.”

Consider also Romans 12:1–2 “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

REFLECT

Let’s take a moment to pray

Ask the Holy Spirit to highlight and draw our attention to what He wants us to see and understand today

APPLY

Process the passage together with these questions:

[Allow the conversation to go where people take it - we want people to feel the liberty to explore the topics of the passage that stand out to them. Select the questions from below that you think are right for the conversation, or add your own. Questions should be focused, yet open-ended. Wherever the conversation goes, help your group “land the plane” on the core idea of the lesson when you wrap up.]

What’s the risk of thinking your physical self doesn’t really matter to your spiritual life?

Why do you think Paul compares the body to a temple? What’s significant about that image?

What does it practically look like to glorify God with your body? How would your choices change if you believed your body was designed for something sacred?

Where we want to “land the plane”

Your body isn’t yours to use however you want - it was designed by God, redeemed by Christ, and filled with His Spirit. What you do with it matters. Maturity means seeing your body not as a tool for pleasure or self-expression, but as a temple for God’s presence and a vessel for His glory. When we live that way, worship becomes something we do with every part of who we are.

Exhortation for the Week

Submit your body to the Lord - just as you would your heart or your mind. Ask Him to show you how you might be misusing it, mistreating it, or letting it control you.

FOOTNOTES

“Everything is permissible for me” had apparently become a slogan to cloak the immorality of some in Corinth. The statement was true but it required qualification. Paul qualified liberty with the principle of love applied to both neighbor and self (cf. Mark 12:31). Liberty which was not beneficial but detrimental to someone else was not loving (1 Cor. 8:1; 10:23) and was to be avoided. So too, liberty which became slavery (I will not be mastered by anything) was not love but hatred of self. David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 516.

“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food” was another slogan by which some Corinthians sought to justify their immorality. They reasoned that “food” was both pleasurable and necessary. When their stomachs signaled hunger, food was taken to satisfy them. So too, they argued, sex was pleasurable and necessary. When their bodies signaled sexual desire, they needed to be satisfied. But Paul drew a sharp line between the stomach and the body. The body (sōma) in this context (cf. 2 Cor. 12:3) meant more than the physical frame; it referred to the whole person, composed of flesh (the material) and spirit (the immaterial; cf. 2 Cor. 2:13 with 7:5). The “body,” therefore, was not perishable but eternal (1 Cor. 6:14), and it was not meant for sexual immorality (porneia) but for union with the Lord (vv. 15–17), which is reciprocal (cf. Eph. 1:23). The eternality of the body, the future destiny of the individual, was made certain by Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor. 6:14; cf. 15:20). David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 516.

Two Become One Flesh. The union of two people involves more than physical contact. It is also a union of personalities which, however transient, alters both of them (6:16). Paul quoted Genesis 2:24 (The two will become one flesh) not to affirm that a man and a prostitute are married but to indicate the gravity of the sin (cf. Eph. 5:31–32). A Christian’s union with Christ likewise affects both him and the Savior, and one cannot act without affecting the other. David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 516–517.

Gnostic Dualism:

Core Belief: Gnosticism holds a sharp divide between the spiritual and the physical. The spiritual realm is seen as the true, divine reality, while the material world—including the human body—is often viewed as a flawed or even evil creation.

Creation View: Many Gnostics believed the material world was not created by the supreme God, but by a lesser, ignorant deity (sometimes called the Demiurge). This led them to distrust physical existence and long for escape into the purely spiritual.

Human Nature: Humans were seen as divine souls trapped in corrupt physical bodies. Salvation, then, was about awakening to this spiritual truth—through secret knowledge (gnosis)—and escaping the physical realm.

Contrast with Christianity: Early Christian teachers strongly rejected this worldview. Scripture affirms that the physical world was created good (Genesis 1), and that God himself took on a physical body in Christ (John 1:14). Gnosticism’s disdain for the body led to distortions of Christian teaching, including denial of Jesus' bodily resurrection and ethical confusion about how to live in the flesh.

Sexual Morality: A Gnostic dualist could take one of two very different approaches to sexual immorality, depending on how they applied their belief that the body is corrupt and unspiritual:

Extreme Asceticism (strict avoidance): Many Gnostics believed that because the body is evil or meaningless, all bodily desires—including sex—should be denied. In this view, sexual immorality would be avoided not out of obedience to God, but because sex ties the soul to the corrupt material world. Celibacy was sometimes seen as a path to spiritual purity and escape from the body.

Extreme Libertinism (indulgence without consequence): Other Gnostics reasoned that since the body doesn’t matter and only the spirit is truly “you,” what you do with your body is irrelevant. This led some to indulge in sexual immorality, claiming it had no spiritual consequence because the body was already corrupt and disconnected from the pure soul.

So while Gnostic dualism often rejected Christian sexual ethics, it could do so by either condemning all sex as impure or by excusing any sexual behavior as spiritually meaningless.