Devotional 12 November 2025

November 12, 2025 • Steve Torres

1 Corinthians 6:19-20.jpg

“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:13b–14, ESV)

Paul’s argument here strikes at the root of one of humanity’s oldest errors: the idea that what is “spiritual” and what is “physical” can be separated. The Corinthians had adopted slogans to justify sin: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” To them, bodily appetites were irrelevant to faith. But Paul reminds them that God Himself proved the body matters: He raised Jesus physically from the dead. If spirituality had nothing to do with the physical, Christ’s resurrection would have been unnecessary. Yet God vindicated His Son by raising Him in the flesh (Luke 24:39), revealing that redemption extends to every part of human existence.

Christ came not to divide the spiritual from the physical, but to reunite them in Himself. The eternal Word became flesh (John 1:14), and through His resurrection, God declares that our bodies are not disposable shells, but sacred spaces destined for glory (Romans 8:11). The believer’s body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19): a living temple. Holiness, then, is not merely an inward sentiment but an embodied reality.

Sexual immorality is not just a moral failure; it is a spiritual desecration. To join one’s body to sin is to drag the temple of God into defilement. Paul’s command to “flee from sexual immorality” (v.18) is not prudish restraint but spiritual wisdom. Just as the Israelites guarded the purity of the temple, the believer must guard the body in which God now dwells.

Our redemption was purchased at the highest cost, “you were bought with a price” (v.20; 1 Peter 1:18–19). Therefore, our freedom is not autonomy but belonging: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). The resurrection reminds us that what we do in our bodies will echo into eternity. To glorify God in the body is to live now as those who will be raised with Him.