Do Not Be Deceived
There is a sentence in 1 Corinthians 6 that most of us have probably heard, maybe even memorized, but rarely stopped to feel the full weight of. It comes near the very end of the chapter, just two clauses long: "You are not your own, for you were bought at a price." Paul writes it as though it should settle everything — and in a sense, it does. The entire argument of 1 Corinthians 6 flows from that one bedrock reality. Everything else in the chapter, from how Christians handle disputes with one another to what they do in private with their bodies, is grounded in the simple, staggering truth that the person reading Paul's letter no longer belongs to themselves. They belong to Another.
When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he was writing to a congregation with a serious identity problem. These were men and women who had been genuinely saved — washed, sanctified, and justified, as Paul puts it in verse 11. But they were living as if none of that had happened. In the first half of the chapter, they were hauling fellow believers into secular Roman courtrooms over personal disputes, asking pagan judges to arbitrate family conflicts. In the second half, some were visiting prostitutes and defending it with slogans about Christian freedom. In both cases, the problem was the same: they had forgotten who they were. More precisely, they had forgotten whose they were.
"To have legal disputes against one another is already a defeat for you." — 1 Corinthians 6:7
Paul's response to the lawsuit problem is blunt in a way that still has the power to sting. He doesn't say the Corinthians might lose their case — he says they've already lost. The very act of dragging a brother or sister before an unbelieving judge is itself the defeat, regardless of the verdict. His reasoning is almost startling in its directness: the same people who will one day judge the world and angels are surely capable of working through a personal dispute without outsourcing the problem to someone who has never heard of God's grace. And then, even more pointedly, he asks whether they would rather be wronged than wrong a brother. That question isn't rhetorical softness. It's a call to remember that the gospel is worth more than whatever they're owed.
Before moving on, Paul pauses to remind the Corinthians of something that should have been impossible to forget. He lists nine categories of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God — and then he says: that is what some of you were. Past tense. Were. The point isn't shame. The point is miracle. Three words land like a verdict being read in a courtroom: washed, sanctified, justified. All of it happening in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of God. This is why the lawsuit section and the sexual immorality section are not really two separate problems. They share a single root. People who have truly grasped what God has done for them don't treat their brothers like adversaries, and they don't treat their bodies like property they can use however they please.
The second half of the chapter addresses a group that had taken the genuine Christian teaching about freedom and stretched it into something dangerous. Their slogan was "everything is permissible for me" — and Paul doesn't actually deny it. He corrects it. Twice, he echoes the slogan back and adds a qualifier: not everything is beneficial, and I will not be mastered by anything. True freedom, Paul is saying, is not the absence of limits. It is the presence of a new Lord. And then he makes the argument that reframes the entire conversation: your body is not a neutral object. It is a member of Christ. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit. To treat it as your own and use it however you like is to forget the price paid for it.
"Don't you know that your bodies are a part of Christ's body?" — 1 Corinthians 6:15
One of the most profound things Paul says in this chapter — and one of the most practically powerful for anyone struggling with sexual temptation — is that the believer is already united to Christ. Not just saved by him. Not just forgiven through him. United to him. One spirit with the Lord. That union is real, present, and total. Which means the question a Christian faces in a moment of temptation is never just "should I or shouldn't I?" The question is deeper: "Do I want to bring Christ into this?" The protection Paul offers isn't a rule. It is a relationship. You already belong to him — why would you tear yourself away?
Paul closes the chapter with a command that is really an invitation: glorify God with your body. Not as a burden. Not as a long list of prohibited behaviors. As a response. An overflow of gratitude to a God who loved you enough to buy you back from sin, death, and the grave. The body that once served sin — that was once heading toward the grave — is now the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It is holy ground. And so every act of the body, every choice about where you go and what you look at and how you treat yourself and others, becomes an opportunity to either honor that reality or ignore it. Paul's vision is a body that functions as a doxology — a living act of worship offered back to the One who paid everything to make it his own.
This Sunday, we'll be walking through all of 1 Corinthians 6 together — the disputes, the transformation, the body, the temple, the price. If you've been following along in the devotionals this week, you've already had a chance to sit with these truths slowly and personally. If this is your first time engaging with the passage, we think you'll find that Paul's words have not lost a bit of their edge or their grace in two thousand years. The church at Corinth had forgotten who they were. The invitation of this chapter — and of Sunday morning — is to remember. You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified. You are not your own. And that is the best possible news.
Join us this Sunday at 10:45am at Union Avenue Baptist Church, 2181 Union Avenue — or worship with us online at unionavenue.org. We'd love to have you with us as we continue our series, Building on the Foundation.