1 Corinthians 6
The Corinthian church reveals a troubling disconnect: they can speak in tongues and prophesy, yet they take one another to pagan courts to settle disputes. They can boast of spiritual gifts, yet they visit prostitutes, treating their bodies as instruments of sin. Paul cuts through the pretense. You cannot claim to belong to Christ while disregarding what the body is and what it is for.
The radical claim underlying this chapter is that the body matters. In Greek philosophy, the body was considered a prison for the soul, essentially neutral or even hostile to spiritual growth. Paul reverses this. The body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, purchased by the blood of Christ. Your body is not your own. It belongs to God. What you do with it matters eternally.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
1 Corinthians 6:1-3Dare Any of You Go to Law?
1Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? 2Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye not competent to judge the smallest matters? 3Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
Paul opens with a question that lands like a gasp: dare any of you? The audacity isn't just the lawsuit itself - it's the choosing of a pagan court. Believers are taking their disputes before judges who do not know God, judges who operate from an entirely foreign system of justice. This is not a legal question; it's a theological one. If you belong to Christ, who will judge your case?
The Greek word for "unjust" (adikos) does not mean they are malicious - it means they operate outside God's justice. They have no access to the Spirit, no framework rooted in Christ. To submit a church dispute to such a court is to accept a foreign verdict as binding.
Paul reminds them: the saints - ordinary believers - will one day judge the world. This isn't speculation or future hope; it's a stated fact rooted in your union with Christ. If you will sit in judgment over cosmic affairs, can you not handle a property dispute today? The irony is withering.
1 Corinthians 6:4-8Why Not Rather Take Wrong?
4If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. 5I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? 6But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. 7Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? 8Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
The text is difficult here, but Paul's point seems to be: if you must have disputes settled by judges, choose someone from your own fellowship - even the least wise among you. Anything is better than going before unbelievers. The sarcasm is bitter: "Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you?" Your community has been given the Spirit. Surely one of you has enough wisdom to sort this out.
The word "brother" (adelphos) appears twice in verse 6, catching the reader's ear. Brother taking brother to law. The very name we call each other in Christ becomes the indictment. This is not a dispute between strangers; it's a betrayal of covenant.
Paul names them again: unbelievers. The term marks the central line: there is a difference between those who know Christ and those who do not. To let an unbeliever judge between believers is to invert the order of the cosmos.
"Why do ye not rather take wrong?" This is not passive resignation. It is an active choice - to absorb loss, to suffer defrauding, to relinquish vindication for the sake of the church's witness. This flies against every human instinct. Paul knows that. He is asking believers to live from a different center - trust in God, not trust in being proven right.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10Neither Fornicators, Nor Idolaters...
9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul opens with a sober statement: unrighteousness has consequences. Not because God is angry or unfair, but because sin separates you from His kingdom. The life of the kingdom is incompatible with the life of habitual sin. Paul is not listing sins for the sake of judgment; he is naming the very sins the Corinthian church was committing - and then he will tell them something staggering.
Fornicators - those visiting prostitutes, like the Corinthians themselves. Paul is not condemning from a distance. He is naming the very sin that divides the church.
Adulterers appear here alongside fornicators. Some are betraying spouses. Others are visiting brothels. Both are misuses of the body - a body that, as Paul will soon remind them, belongs to the Lord.
The word malakos (rendered "effeminate" in the KJV) is contested. In context, it likely refers to the passive partner in same-sex activity. Paul is not condemning a personality or manner of speech - he is naming a sexual practice that separates from God's kingdom. The text speaks plainly. We need not soften it, but we also need not add layers it does not claim.
The term arsenokoitēs (literally "man-bedder") is similarly specific. Paul names same-sex intercourse. He does not elaborate. He does not philosophize. He names it alongside idolatry, theft, and covetousness, all of which separate one from the kingdom. What matters next is not the depth of this particular sin, but the response to all of them.
1 Corinthians 6:11And Such Were Some of You
11And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Three words in past tense: were. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves. That was your history. But. The word but turns everything. The chapter is not written to condemn the Corinthians into obedience. It is written to remind them what has already happened to them. You have already been changed.
Washed - your sins are not merely forgiven, they are cleansed away, removed from you entirely. The past does not cling.
Sanctified - you are set apart for God alone. This is not a gradual process beginning now. It is already complete. You are already holy, already belonging to Him.
Justified - declared righteous before the Father. All charges are dropped. You stand before Him not guilty, because you stand in Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:12-13All Things Are Lawful - But Are They Wise?
12All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. 13Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
"All things are lawful" - Paul quotes what the Corinthians themselves are saying, a slogan of Christian freedom. And he does not deny it. Under Christ, you are free from the law. But freedom is not license. Just because something is lawful does not make it wise. Just because you can does not mean you should.
The body will be destroyed, along with food. This verse has troubled readers. Paul seems to suggest the body is temporary, throwaway. But the next sentence reverses this entirely: the body is for the Lord. Paul is not denigrating the physical. He is saying the body's trajectory is resurrection, not permanent carnality. To use the body now as if this life is all there is misses the point entirely.
Here Paul makes the chapter's central claim: the body is not for fornication. You do not own your body for your own use. It is not an instrument of your pleasure. It is for the Lord. And - strikingly - the Lord is for the body. God cares about what happens to your body. He does not ask you to transcend it or escape it. He redeems it, glorifies it, will resurrect it.
1 Corinthians 6:14-16Your Body Is a Member of Christ
14And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. 15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. 16What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
This is staggering language. Your body is not just yours. It is a member of Christ. Not metaphorically - Paul means it. When you join yourself to another body, you pull Christ into that union. Your body carries Christ's presence. Sexual union is not a private act. It is a corporate act. You cannot hide it from Him.
Paul quotes Genesis 2:24: when two become one flesh in sexual union, they form a unit. This is what God designed marriage to be - a profound union. But when you take that same physical union and do it with a prostitute, you are claiming that union belongs anywhere, for anyone. The Corinthians treat sexual acts as transactions, not covenants. Paul says: every sexual act creates a real union. This is why it matters so much.
1 Corinthians 6:17-18Joined to the Lord - One Spirit
17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
Paul sets the alternative before the Corinthians: you can join yourself to a prostitute (one body), or you can join yourself to the Lord (one spirit). The contrast is stark. One union is physical and final. The other is spiritual and eternal. The body chooses which union it serves.
Paul does not say "avoid" or "resist." He says flee. Run. Fornication is not a temptation to be managed through willpower. It is danger to be escaped. This is not shame-language; it is survival language. When faced with sexual sin, the call is not to fight but to flee.
The statement is puzzling at first: every sin is "without the body," but fornication is against your own body. What does Paul mean? Likely this: other sins - theft, anger, jealousy - can be committed through your body but originate elsewhere (the mind, the heart). But fornication is unique: it is a sin against the body itself. It misuses the body for its own purposes. It treats your body as a thing to be exploited rather than honored.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20Your Body Is the Temple of the Holy Ghost
19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
This is the chapter's climax. Your body2 - soma3, the whole physical form - is a naos, a temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament1, the temple was where God's presence dwelled most intensely. That role has passed to you. Not your mind alone, not your spirit alone - your body. What you do with your flesh matters to God because God Himself lives there.
You have been purchased at a price - the blood of Christ. You are not your own. You belong to someone infinitely worthy. This is not bondage; it is belonging.
Paul adds: "ye are not your own." This hits hard against a culture of self-ownership, autonomy, and personal choice. But the Corinthians have been purchased. They are not free in the sense the world means. They are free in the sense that matters - free from sin, free for God, liberated to become what they were made to be.
The final call: glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. This is not about shame. It is about glory. Your body is not a thing to be ashamed of or transcended. It is a vessel of glory, the very temple where God dwells. To glorify God in your body means to honor what God honors, to recognize that your flesh is sacred, to use your body as an instrument of the divine.
Further study
- The foundational text Paul cites in verse 16 - the covenant design for sexual union in marriage.
- The BodyBible Odyssey (SBL)SBL study entry on soma in biblical theology - the body as integral to personhood, not incidental to spirit.
- Greek Lexicon - Soma (σῶμα)Perseus ScaifeLexical and textual evidence for the Greek word soma - body, flesh, person - across classical and biblical usage.