1 Corinthians · chapter 6 of 16
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1 Corinthians 6 deals with two problems in Corinth. First, believers were taking one another to court before unbelieving judges, which Paul sees as a defeat. Second, the idea that the body does not matter and that sexual immorality is harmless. Paul answers that the believer's body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and was bought with a price.
Paul continues correcting the life of the Corinthian church. After the discipline of chapter 5, he addresses how conflicts between believers are settled and how the body is used. Both matters spring from the same confusion: thinking that faith is only an inner matter that does not affect what one does with money, conflicts and the body.
Paul asks how any of them dares, when he has a matter against another, to go to law before the unrighteous instead of before the saints. He reminds them that the saints will judge the world and even angels, so they should be able to settle matters of this life. With irony he asks whether there is no one among them wise enough to judge between brothers. It is already a defeat that there are lawsuits among them: it would be better to be wronged or defrauded. But they themselves wrong and defraud, and their own brothers.
Paul reminds them that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, and lists conduct such as sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, theft, greed, drunkenness, reviling and swindling. Some of them were like that, but they were washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
He then cites what some were saying: all things are lawful for me. Paul answers that not everything is helpful and that he will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach, but God will destroy both; the body is not for immorality but for the Lord, and God who raised the Lord will also raise us. Believers' bodies are members of Christ, and joining them to a prostitute makes one body with her. Whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Paul commands them to flee sexual immorality, for the one who commits it sins against his own body. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you and whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Paul asks whether they do not know that the saints will judge the world. If God will give them that task, they should be able to settle the differences of this life without going to the courts of unbelievers.
Some of you were like that, says Paul, but you were washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. A believer's past does not define them: grace has changed them.
Paul commands them to flee sexual immorality because it affects one's own body in a way different from other sins. It is not about bravely resisting but about decisively moving away.
The believer's body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and believers are not their own because they were bought with a price. So the body is to be used to glorify God.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Taking their disputes against other believers before unrighteous judges. — 1 Corinthians 6:1
Answer: The saints. — 1 Corinthians 6:2
Answer: That they will not inherit the kingdom of God. — 1 Corinthians 6:9
Answer: They were washed, sanctified and justified. — 1 Corinthians 6:11
Answer: To flee from it. — 1 Corinthians 6:18
Answer: Because they were bought with a price. — 1 Corinthians 6:20
1 Corinthians 6 invites us to review how we handle conflicts between believers. Before hiring a lawyer or speaking ill of a brother or sister, it is wise to seek reconciliation within the community, even at the cost of losing out. A small group with trust and maturity can help mediate.
The chapter also speaks about the body. In a culture that treats it as private property, Paul reminds us it belongs to Christ. That protects purity, but it also encourages anyone carrying a painful past: what was has been washed, and the new identity comes from Christ and not from earlier mistakes.
1 Corinthians 6 ends with the call to glorify God in the body. With chapter 7 a new part of the letter begins: Paul answers in writing the questions the Corinthians had asked him, starting with marriage and singleness.
The passage is about disputes between believers brought before unbelieving judges, and Paul asks that they be settled within the church. It does not address serious crimes or defense against an unbeliever, and it does not set a rule for every legal case. His concern is the community's witness and love among believers.
Paul states it as something the Corinthians should know, but does not explain it. Many interpreters link it to believers sharing in Christ's rule at the end of time. His argument is that if so much awaits them, they can judge everyday matters.
It seems to have been a slogan of the Corinthians that Paul quotes in order to correct it. He acknowledges there is freedom in Christ but limits it: not everything is helpful and nothing should master us. Christian freedom is lived for the good of others and the glory of God.