Hello, dear friends!
I return, before my readers, once again to follow up on my previous article, "The Idol of Self and How to Identify It", where I said that I would like to bring up a few Bible verses and phrases that have been pulled out of context in the self-care, body image and fitness realm. So here I am. Following up. :-)
Getting right into it, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states:
"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body."
Are you familiar with this passage? My guess is that you probably are! I have found that this passage is super popular among fitness industries that claim to promote Christianity and implementing Scripture into health and wellness. I would say, though, that the entirety of the two verses is not usually quoted, rather, just the phrase "your body is a temple". Am I the only one who noticed this? Also quoted as: "My body is a temple".
Just for giggles, I went on Instagram and searched the hashtag, "#mybodyisatemple", and it turns out that there were 102 THOUSAND posts! I do not recommend scrolling through the posts, as there is a lot of... skin that shows up. To summarize the results, there were several flexing poses post-workout, a few healthy meal pics, and a lot of ladies posing in their underwear... sorry for the mental picture. To put it plainly, mainstream media culture edifies the phrase, "My body is a temple", in relation to body image. Personally, I imagine many non-Christian people use this phrase as well, without necessarily realizing its biblical roots.
The question, then, is: does 1 Corinthians 6:19 apply to self-care, body image and fitness? Many people think it does (as shown with my instagram hashtag search!)! Perhaps you do as well. My short answer to this question is no, but let me explain why. And, as a disclaimer, I do not blame ya' for buying this correlation... what we see and read and hear in our daily lives does have an impact. Scripture pulled out of context can be sneaky! Let's talk about this passage in context.
Ah, yes, context.
I love that word because, honestly, reading the passage in its entirety answers this question without much of an explanation!
Reading 1 Corinthians, it is important to know the author, Paul, is addressing the Corinthians about an issue of sexual immorality amongst born-again believers, as the Corinthians were exchanging in illicit sex outside the boundaries of God's design and excusing it as nothing but a bodily need- like satisfying hunger, "Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food..." (1 Cor. 6:13a).
Here is Paul's response:
"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, 'The two shall become one flesh'. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body" (1 Cor. 6:15-20).
Woah!
With only adding in the three verses preceding the oh-so-popular 19-20, we can easily see Paul was addressing sexual sin. He stressed the great evil and consequence in sinning with our own bodies as born-again believers because, when we engage in sexual sin while Christ dwells in us, we have made Christ a harlot.
John McAuthor comments on verse 19 well, "A Christian's body belongs to the Lord, is a member of Christ, and is the Holy Spirit's temple... Every act of fornication, adultery, or any other sin is committed by the believer in the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, where God dwells..." (NKJV MacArthur Study Bible).
Even though I learned about 1 Corinthians 6:19 in context before, it still astonishes me to read the whole passage and compare it to the way it is often used today. So many people throw around the phrase, "my body is a temple", to promote self-care, fitness, positive self-image... essentially any self-promoting ideology we can think of.
Why is this the case?
I think it ultimately falls under the major point I have mentioned in previous articles, human nature is prideful. We indeed care too much about ourselves.
Think about it!
To take a verse that was meant to address sexual sin (that is still very prevalent in our culture today) and change it to meet an extremely vain and self-promoting agenda is not just an interpretive error, but it is morally wrong.
Yes, our bodies are a temple. Yes, we should take care of our bodies. But, both of those truths should not be inextricably linked together to meet the man-made Idol of Self.
Finally, I think of this question: How often do we quote 1 Corinthians 6:19 appropriately in our daily lives, if at all? Looking back, can we say we have referred to it to remain sexually pure? For single women today, are they going to hashtag, "#mybodyisatemple", to promote chastity? Oppositely, our culture has belittled the seriousness of sexual sin. I would even go so far as to say that sexual sin has become part of the self-love ideology which promotes doing whatever esteems ourselves, regardless of Scriptural truth. This is why, as a Christian, I have veered away from the term, "self-love", because it is one of several facets of the Idol of Self that sharply contradicts Scripture.
When we put 1 Corinthians 6:19 in context, it still has such huge implications for the lives of believers. It places sexual purity in a holy light, reminding us of God's design and His call for us to live holy and redeemed lives. I think we ought to both celebrate that call, but also take it seriously. How much more important is living a sexually holy, pure life as a redeemed believer instead of living for the fleeting, vain, empty pursuit of the Idol of Self?
I hope placing 1 Corinthians 6:19 in context is a help and encouragement. I already look forward to talking about other verses and passages that can be placed back in the context of God's perfectly constructed Word.
-GB
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