1 Corinthians 6:12-20

It’s important that any pericope be considered in its context, but it’s particularly vital to understand that these 9 verses from the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the church at Corinth must not be read in isolation, amputated from the larger corpus. That’s also an idea that Paul wants the individual members of the Corinthian church to internalize, the idea that they are not singular self-sufficient beings, but bodies who not only do not possess themselves, but are also members of the larger body of Christ. Reading these 9 verses, particularly in light of our contemporary Western culture’s ubiquitous and never-ending quests for health, wholeness, and wellness, without connecting them to that more general point about unity and mutuality risks interpreting them as emphasizing the individual’s own “benefit.” However, these verses are not advocating the same kind of epicurean life that modern-day fitness coaches recommend when they let us know what’s “good for us.”

And so when Paul expresses his Christian liberty by declaring that all things are lawful but qualifies this view by noting that not everything is “beneficial,” he is not simply saying that not everything is “good for me.” He is saying more than, “I could eat Krispy Kreme donuts all day long if I wanted to, but I wouldn’t look as fit or feel as good or live as long as I would otherwise.” The same Paul who will tell the Corinthian church that their gifts are to be used for the common good (12:7), that they are all members of Christ’s body (12:27), and that their individual liberty is limited by the possibility of detriment to the weaker believer (8:9) surely does not suggest here in verse 12 that “benefit” is for the individual alone (and there is the potential for an interesting word study on sumphero, literally “to bring or carry together, to gather”). For Paul the body of the believer is never to be understood in isolation, but in consideration of and in relation to others, for whom believers are to be emptied out as the body of Christ (Philippians 2). It’s also not insignificant that these verses follow Paul’s discussion of lawsuits among the believers, in which he recommends “let yourself be wronged” rather than bring a lawsuit against a fellow believer.

But it’s not only the idea that one’s body is not one’s own (as Paul clearly states in verse 19) that resonates throughout this epistle and elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, because several themes and subjects mentioned in these 9 verses are more fully explicated elsewhere, and there is certainly a preaching opportunity to explore these recurrences.

In fact, Paul begins this scripture with a statement so nice he says it twice, “all things are lawful for me,” and that is a statement that is repeated another two times in 10:23, where Paul reiterates the responsibility that accompanies Christian liberty. The Christian who is not under the law but justified by grace through faith is still called to avoid those actions that harm others or damage the unity of the body. Thus, “do not seek your own advantage, but that of others,” and “do everything for the glory of God” become a corrective to the temptation that many in the Corinthian church had yielded to, the temptation to think “we can do whatever we want” and to fall back into patterns of behaviour that marked their lives before they came to Christ (fornication and prostitution are the examples Paul gives in these verses, but there are several others). Throughout the epistle the members of the church at Corinth are told in one way or another, “You have left your old lives behind—stop living as you did back then.” Incidentally, a word study of the Greek that is translated as “fornication,” might provide an opportunity to address the practical contemporary dangers of pornography. Further, this mention of sexual immorality that reaches back to the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:24) sets the stage for a larger discussion beginning in chapter 7.

Paul’s connection of the relationship between food and the stomach to that of the Lord and the body certainly foreshadows the extensive treatment that the role of food receives beginning in chapter 8. The universal connection of groups of people to their foodways provides abundant material for the preacher to make a practical point about the possibility of offending one’s fellow believer and causing division (consider the controversial nature of a topic as seemingly benign as pineapple on pizza—or ketchup on a hotdog—or sugar in cornbread).

The image of the body as temple is also a recurring one, and Paul has used it in 3:16-17. Further, Romans 12:1-8 works very well in reiterating that idea while adding the concept of the living sacrifice and echoing the metaphor of the body.

There is also an opportunity to consider the irony and paradox in Paul’s reference to prostitution while telling the church they had been “bought with a price.” Add to that the idea that Paul says he will not be “dominated (or mastered) by anything” and there is much to say about the idea that to be bought (and to be a slave to the gospel) is to be free, as Paul further unpacks in 1 Cor 9:19-23. One might reference the familiar quote from Luther’s Treatise on Christian Liberty in which he states that the Christian is ‘the most free lord of all, subject to none,’ while also the ‘most dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone’ (paraphrased).

Finally, from a uniquely Wesleyan perspective, there is a possibility for the preacher to address these verses from the perspective of “stewardship of the body” and to use Wesley’s emphasis on healthful habits and actions such as eating well, exercising, and getting enough sleep (consider his sermon on “Redeeming the Time” in which he warns against oversleeping). Wesley not only taught that good stewardship required that we take care of our spiritual health (through prayer, and worship, and study of the scriptures), but also our mental health, keeping one’s mind sharp and clear by doing those things that strengthen it and avoiding those things that weaken it, and similarly our physical health, keeping our bodies as fit as possible in our circumstances, resting when we need to, and doing what we need to do to heal, to be restored, when needed, so that we can do all the good we can for as long as we can as God gives us the ability. Of course, John Wesley was so interested in teaching folks how to keep themselves not just spiritually healthy but also physically and mentally healthy that he wrote a sort of medical handbook called the Primitive Physick. That’s because John Wesley understood, as Paul does, that as followers of Christ we are called to a ministry, that we have things to do, and we need to be fit to do them. Wesley and Paul are both advocates of good stewardship of the flesh in which we live and in which the Holy Spirit dwells. Neither of them advocate a self-centred pursuit of “wellness” and “wholeness,” but an other-centered expenditure of the resource that is one’s body.