>> Jen: Hey, faithful listeners. Today we'll be talking about first uh, 1 Corinthians six discussing sexual sin. So this episode might not be super appropriate if you've got children in the vicinity, but for the adults listening in, it's going to be a really, really convicting episode, I think. Stay tuned. We're going to talk about first corinthians 612 through 20 discussing sexual sins and why christians specifically should not ever engage in sexual sin. Grab your
bible out of the version that you prefer. I'll be reading from the web this morning. All m things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything. Foods for the belly and the belly for foods. But God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. Now, God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his
power. Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or don't you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body for the two he says will become one flesh? But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
Or dont you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God bless You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are godse.
Alrighty, so in this chapter and the previous chapter, and also in the next chapter, Paul is going to discuss everything relating to sexuality with the uh, 1 Corinthians because apparently there were some questions as to what was good to do sexually and what was bad to do sexually. The uh, 1 Corinthians somehow didn't have a solid understanding of what was required of them regarding sexuality in their christian
walk with God. So in the previous chapter, Paul was really saddened to hear that there was a member of the corinthian church who was living in an incestuous relationship with his stepmom. And Paul is like, you need to excommunicate that man and make sure that this sin doesn't spread around your church because a little bit of yeast will spread throughout the entire dough. He says, don't let that happen. So now, in first Corinthians six, he goes into it a little bit
more in depth. Apparently the corinthian Christians believed that it was okay to just do whatever they wanted to do with their bodies. If they thought that it was good, they should go do it. That is what they believed. So Paul begins addressing some of these issues. He says, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
Now the words all things are lawful for me, Paul actually had said those words specifically relating to foods. In Romans, he talked a lot about food and he also talked about it, I believe in Colossians. But apparently the corinthian Christians took Paul's messages regarding foods and applied it in a way broader sense to mean literally anything regarding the
body. So I guess they were saying, oh, uh, well, all things are lawful for me, so I can go hire a male or a female prostitute, and because I need sex right now, I can just sleep with this prostitute. And that's all. That's all fine and dandy because all things are lawful for me. I've been given grace under God. Now what's really interesting about this is that, uh, this is still kind of preached in certain churches around
America. In fact, my parents old church once did a sermon where the pastor got up there and was saying how happy he was that the old Testament scriptures were null and void because he wouldn't be able to keep them. He doesn't keep them, and, uh, thank God that he doesn't have to keep them
anymore. I would say that that's a twisting of scripture a little bit, but it's still kind of broadly taught that because Christians have been given grace, we can kind of do whatever we want to do, and there's nothing wrong with our specific desires because God put those desires in us. It's all fine and dandy to do whatever those desires lead us to, basically. But Paul makes the argument that that's not really the case. He says, okay, all things are lawful for me. However, not all things are
expedient. The word expedient means basically good for you or good to do. So basically, does this action I'm about to take lead to my flourishing, or does it lead to me becoming more miserable? That's what Paul is talking about here. Then he says, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything. So is something tempting us? Is something causing us to sin? Is something taking our desire away from God and putting it on an
idol. Let's say, even if something is lawful for us to do, if it falls within those two categories, it's not good for us or it's going to take our focus away from goddess. Then Paul argues, you probably should not do that thing, even if it is lawful for you to do. Then Paul actually quotes himself here in verse 13. And this apparently was something that the uh, 1 Corinthians had taken out of context. Paul says, foods are for the belly and the belly are for foods.
Now, of course, that's talking about how the Christian has been given grace and we now can eat the things that were once considered unclean. In the Old Testament, God has made everything clean. In the New Testament, Jesus himself said that. So Paul was apparently preaching this to the uh, 1 Corinthians, but they took that way out of context to mean that, oh, because the body was designed in a certain
way. Whenever I have a desire, that's a good thing, and I will just fulfill that desire, whatever it might be. But then Paul says, but God will bring to nothing both the body and the foods. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. So Paul says, when I said that, I was talking specifically about foods, not other desires that you might want to do, because the body truly was created for eating. What does God say
in the Old Testament? At the very beginning, in the book of Genesis, when he made Adam and Eve, he said, I have given for you every green thing to eat. He says, look, everything that is made here, that is green, that is growing, I have given you that thing to eat. God created the body for eating, and he gave us delicious foods to eat. But God did not create the body for sexual immorality. When God bless made Adam and Eve, he created Eve to be married to Adam. And that's it.
That was the only sexual union Adam and Eve were ever supposed to have was with each other. That was the design of a man and a woman was to be married to each other and not to have sexual immorality. So sure, the body was created to eat, but God did not create us to go out and just have sexual immorality and just do whatever we wanted to do sexually with whoever we want to do it with. God did not create our bodies for that. He created us to be joined to one person of the opposite
sex for our lifetime. That is what God bless created us for. Verse 13, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. And the Lord is for the body. Now, God bless raised up the Lord and will also raise us up, uh, by his power. Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? So, because christians have been set apart, and by the way, Paul is talking specifically to Christians here, he is not talking to non Christians at this point in time, because non Christians are going to
act like non Christians. They're not going to follow the teachings of the Bible. And even Paul basically said that. He said, I don't judge non believers because they are going to act like non believers. I can't judge them. That is up to God to judge those non believers. But when it comes to christians, we can, in fact, judge other christians as long as we are doing it in a kind hearted way. But we are supposed to judge other christians because we have to be very careful with
what is being allowed in our churches. And for the corinthian church, obviously, all sorts of weird sex things were coming into the church and being allowed and being tolerated and even being, um, celebrated in a sense. Paul said that the uh, 1 Corinthians were actually boasting about some of the things that they were letting in the church. And Paul is like, you should be mourning instead, because our churches are the body of Christ. Each one of us is a member of Christ's
body. And if we're members of Christ's body, each and every one of us individually, we should take that very seriously. He says, shall then I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Don't you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one in body for the two he says, will become one flesh? And once again, that's going back to the creation story. Genesis,
chapter two, verse 24. When God made Adam and Eve, he created them for each other, not for each other, and for somebody else, for each other only. And God said, when he married them, a man will leave his father and his mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two of them shall become one flesh. So that's a special relationship between a man and a woman that is never supposed to be broken. So Paul says, because we have been joined with Christ. Similarly to Adam and Eve's marriage story
or the first marriage ever done. How then can we rip that union apart to allow prostitution or any other sexual immorality to make way in our lives? We shouldn't rip that union apart because we are members of Christ's body, just like how God made the man and the woman one flesh at the beginning of time. We are, in a sense, one flesh with Christ's body. So our bodies, then as members of Christ's body, are supposed to be holy and set apart and
different. So if we are allowing any amount of sexual immorality to come into our lives, we are breaking that special bond, that special union we have with Christ. And actually marriage is supposed to be a picture of that bond that we have with God which actually Paul is going to get into in the next chapter. So Paul here is not talking about the marriage union between one man and one woman. He's talking about any kind of sexual immorality that is outside of that.
Pornea is the greek word used here. And Porneia is defined as anything sexual that happens outside of the marriage union. So this could be talking about any kind of sexual intimacy that happens, not even just prostitution. But Paul gives the analogy of prostitution because don't forget where the corinthian church was located. It was located in Corinth, which was like the capital of
prostitution. Back in Paul's days. Corinth was very well known for it's twelve idolatrous temples dedicated to different greek gods. And many of them had some sort of prostitution involved. So these men and these women could go and get a male or a female prostitute and engage in their act of worship, quote unquote. So prostitution was pretty big in Corinth, and apparently it somehow started making its way into the corinthian church. And Paul is really flabbergasted by this and
very appalled by this. And he says, no, you can't allow this to come in to the church because you are members of Christ's body. And so because you're a member of Christ's body, you cannot break that union, that special bond you have with Christ, to have sex with somebody who is not your marriage partner. Now you might be like, where does marriage fall in all of this? Is all sex bad? Well, no. Marriage, like I said, is a, uh, picture of the union between Christ and
the church. And sex within marriage is a gift from God And God himself told Adam and Eve to have sex in the Garden of Eden. He said, be fruitful and multiply. In fact, that was the first 1st commandment I'm pretty sure that he gave them was to be fruitful and multiply. So he told Adam and eve, have sex, have children. That is my gift to you. So marriage is not a bad thing, and sex within marriage is not a bad thing. But going back to that greek word porneia, any
porneia, that is a bad thing. That is something that is not expedient for us, and that is something that also takes our focus off of Christ. Verse 16. Don't you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body for the two he says will become one flesh? Now, I know we already talked about this verse, but the other thing I want to cover here is Paul saying that if somebody has sex outside of marriage, that those two people,
according to the Bible, are married. Personally, I don't think that that was what Paul was getting at here. I think Paul was trying to say there is no such thing as casual sex and that to God this is a very egregious issue, because you are giving your body away, the most private parts of yourself to somebody who, if they're not your husband or your wife, honestly don't deserve it. They don't deserve those parts of you because you are special, and your body is very special, and your body is very
sacred. And I think instinctually, all of us kind of know this, even those of us who have committed sexual sins in the past, myself included. Instinctually, all of us know that what Paul is saying here is true. And the reason I say that is because sexual sin specifically is the most shameful sins. None of us want to admit when we have done sexual sins, because it is so private and it is so embarrassing.
That is why the act of having sex is so private and why some of you actually might even be recoiling at me, saying the word sex so often, myself included. Actually, every time I say it, I want to giggle like a, uh, 13 year old boy. Sex is a very intimate thing that is done behind closed doors because it is private and it is so special, and it is embarrassing when people find out about it. So, because innately, to every single one of us, sex is so private and so special and so
secretive. We all know that there is something kind of sacred about sex, even for those of you who are not christians that are listening to this podcast, sex is special. And that is what Paul is saying here. You know, because sex is so special and so private, why would we just give it to anybody who wants it? Why would we just give it to somebody because we want it? It's a special thing that should only be given to the most special person in our lives, and hopefully that would be our marriage
partner. So Paul says, flee sexual immorality, flee porneia. Not sex between a husband and a wife, but sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. That's another reason why sexual sin is so shameful, because we all innately know that when we sin in that way, we have done something to corrupt our own bodies. Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
who is in you, whom you have from God? Now, of course, yesterday we just talked about Solomon building the temple in the Book of one kings, where Solomon was doing his best to make the temple site as sacred as possible. To the extent that Solomon wasn't even allowing his construction workers to use iron tools, because he wanted the temple to be as sacred as possible. And a whole lot of like hammer pounding and stuff like that, and construction noise isn't very
sacred. And so he wanted the entire building process to be as special as possible, because the temple was supposed to be beautiful and it was supposed to be holy, and it was supposed to be set apart and it was supposed to be different. And nowadays, we don't have temples the same
way that the Old Testament did. Instead, the temple of God is actually each and every christian, because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, the same way that the Holy Spirit would go and reside inside the temple or inside the tenemeting on top of the Ark of the covenant. Now the Holy Spirit lives in each one of us. And so our bodies need to be a sacred temple for the Holy Spirit, something that remains very special
for the Holy Spirit. So if we are corrupting our own bodies with sexual immorality, then we are corrupting the temple of God the same way that the Israelites would corrupt God's temple way back in the Old Testament. And God would get so angry about that because he's like, this is my house. Why are you messing up my
house? And I've made this analogy before, but if somebody came into your house and just started disrespecting it and started like engaging in weird sex stuff on your couch, you would be calling the police and trying to throw these people out. And yet that's exactly what the Israelites were doing to God's temple. So now we, you and I, and every faithful listener listening to this, we have to be very careful not to do that to the Holy Spirit's house. His house is now
us. So we need to take care of the place that the Holy Spirit is living, especially when it comes to our spirituality and our morality. So Paul says, flee sexual immorality because the Holy Spirit who is in you is from God You are not your own, for you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are
God's. So because you belong to God and we have devoted ourselves to God bless You know, we promised that basically when we got baptized that we would start living in the way that God wants us to. We have to make sure to keep our temple, the resting place for God's holy spirit, special, the same way that we would keep ourselves special for our marriage partners. Not gonna lie, this was kind of a hard episode for me to talk about. So I hope you bared with me and uh, enjoyed the episode.
And honestly, if you were convicted, that's a good thing. It's good to be convicted sometimes. But you know, like Paul said though, in the first part of first Corinthians six, even if we did it one time, struggle with these sexual sins, or even if we are currently struggling with them, that's not the end. You know, God doesn't just, you know, abandon us because we're struggling with sexual sin, but he helps us overcome those sexual sins because he doesn't want that for us, because
ultimately it really isn't good for us. Just like Paul says in verse twelve, you know, there are certain things that we do that are just not good for us and sexual sin is one of them. So even if we struggle with sexual sins, that is not the end. We can certainly be freed. And I know that personally very well myself. I think people have actually heard my testimony before. I'm not going to go
back into that again. But all I'm here to say before I end this podcast is that it's not the end if you struggle with any sin. But Paul says specifically, flee from it. He doesn't say tempt yourself with it. He says when it comes up, flee from it. In fact, I can't remember what famous preacher said it, but there was a famous preacher, it might have been Spurgeon or something like that. There was a famous preacher that said that sexual sin specifically is one that you always have to flee from,
you know, other sins. For example, like drinking. If you have overcome drinking, you possibly can go to a bar with your friends and be absolutely fine and not drink with your friends. But when it comes to sexual sin, you have to flee from it every single time. You can't, you know, go to a strip club with your friends if you're struggling with sexual sin, because you're going to just fall right back in. And that is also the advice that Paul gives and the advice that I am giving you right
now. If you struggle with sexual temptation, flee from it. Run from it as fast as you possibly can. Don't even allow it to tempt you because it's much harder to get past it if you're allowing it to tempt you than if you just run from it from the get go. Anyway, faithful listeners, that's my advice for you guys today. And that is the advice also from first Corinthians six. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, share it on your social media platforms and
tell people that the Bible explained podcast exists. And also go over to the shop because I have a wonderful lion of Judah tea that is the most comfortable t shirt you will ever wear, so you're going to want to check that out. Now, faithful listeners, don't forget that there is no episode tomorrow except for those of you who
are members on Ko Fi. We are going through the book of psalms, so if you're interested in gaining access to Friday's episodes, then make sure to click the link in the description of the episode. Go over to Ko fi and sign up for the Ko fi tier and that will gain you access to all Friday episodes. Past and future faith listeners, have a fantastic and wonderful, wonderful rest of your day. I'll, uh, see you guys on Monday. Happy listening and God bless.