Wednesday, June 26, 2024

1 Corinthians 6:19 -- On Bodies and Ownership

"What? 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?"
1 Corinthians 6:19


The ideas here are interesting. First that our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, and then also that we aren't our own... presumably because the Holy Ghost is from God, but also because our bodies are from God, we were created by God... choosing to harm our bodies is a sin against God, because on some level we are his already, and also, as it says in the next verse, we are "bought with a price."

Christ saves us, and we owe him everything. So on many levels, we are not our own, and I think that is actually a good thing, because God values us more than we value ourselves, and he will take care of us, and work to preserve our unique selves better than we ever could. We aren't slaves, but rather in a covenant relationship where God saves us, and we promise to use that saved life for a good purpose, and to live it well. We're working God's plan of happiness, thankful for our lives and trying to help others, and rejecting that immense gift of life is short-sighted. Not that life isn't painful sometimes, but imagining that the pain is permanent and God can't overcome it or heal it... that's the short-sighted part, because he will heal us all as we come to him.

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