1 Corinthians 6

The Text

Paul is furious that Corinthian believers are dragging each other before pagan judges over trivial matters, while claiming that one day they will judge angels. He then delivers a startling list of who will not inherit God's kingdom, only to add: and such were some of you. The chapter closes with a fierce argument against sexual immorality, grounded in the fact that the body itself belongs to the Lord and is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

The Core

The whole chapter turns on one sentence: "you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified." Three verbs, three tenses of grace collapsed into one moment. Paul is not moralizing. He is reasoning from identity to behavior, never the reverse. The Corinthians are not called to become holy so that God might accept them; they have been made holy, and now their lawsuits and their visits to prostitutes look grotesquely out of place. The theological weight sits here: salvation is not a program of improvement but a transfer of ownership. "You were bought with a price." Everything Paul says about courts and bodies flows from that purchase.

The Common Thread

Paul reaches for the deepest current in Scripture: God dwelling among his people. The tabernacle, the temple, the pillar of fire, the glory that filled Solomon's house until the priests could not stand, all of it now relocated. "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit." What Israel guarded with veils and blood and terror now walks around in ordinary flesh. And the union with Christ that Paul describes ("he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit") echoes the covenant marriage language of Hosea and Ezekiel, where Israel's idolatry was called adultery. Sexual sin is not just breaking a rule; it is covenant infidelity written into the body itself.

The Mirror

Read verses 9 and 10 slowly and something uncomfortable happens. The list includes the greedy and the revilers alongside the sexually immoral. Most churches have quietly agreed which sins from that list are respectable and which are disqualifying. Paul refuses that arrangement. If you have ever crushed a colleague with words, cheated on taxes, or nursed a resentment that would horrify your friends if spoken aloud, you are on the list. And then: "such were some of you." Not "such are some of you, but try harder." The mirror shows the old self and the washed self at once, and asks which one you are still dressing in the morning.

The Question

The hardest question is not about the list but about the courts. Paul tells Christians to accept being defrauded rather than sue a brother. Really? In a culture where lawsuits protect the vulnerable, this sounds either naive or dangerous. But Paul is not writing a legal code; he is exposing a spiritual absurdity. People who will judge angels cannot sort out a business dispute without pagan magistrates? The question the text leaves open is where the line falls between accepting wrong for the sake of unity and enabling real abuse. Paul does not answer it here. He does insist that being right is not the highest value for people who follow a crucified Lord.

The Detail

Notice the strange logic of verse 13: "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." The Corinthians apparently had a slogan: the stomach is made for food, the body is made for sex, both are just biology. Paul concedes the first half and then breaks the parallel. The body is not a neutral appetite machine. It has a destination: the Lord, who will raise it. The resurrection is the reason sexual ethics matter. What you do with your body now is training for what it will be forever. This is why Paul cannot treat the body as either sacred prison or disposable shell. It is the site of redemption.

The Profile

Corinth was a port city with two harbors and a reputation. Temple prostitution, thick commerce, endless lawsuits, a culture where status was performed publicly. The believers there were mostly non-elite, some slaves, some freedmen, a few with means. When Paul says "such were some of you," his readers could name the person next to them who used to visit the temples, and the one who used to defraud. To hear "you were washed" was to hear that the harbor stink no longer clung to them. And to hear "your body is a temple" was almost comic: these ordinary bodies, replacing the great marble shrines that towered over their city. The kingdom was arriving in unimpressive flesh.

Reflection

Which sin on Paul's list have you quietly reclassified as acceptable, and what does that reveal about your view of grace?

If your body is not your own but purchased, how does that change the smallest decisions you will make today?

Go deeper in 1 Corinthians

Hand picked books that unpack this Bible book further.

The Message of 1 Corinthians

David Prior

Church problems, cross shaped answers: Corinth feels very modern.

View the book →

Paul For Everyone: 1 Corinthians

N.T. Wright

Wright's readable guide through love, gifts and resurrection.

View the book →

1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary

Leon Morris

A trusted Tyndale commentary: compact, careful and clear on every passage.

View the book →

1 Corinthians

Craig Blomberg

Explains what it meant then, and bridges it honestly to life now.

View the book →

As an Amazon Associate, Faith.network earns from qualifying purchases. This helps keep the platform free.