1 Corinthians 6:12-20 | God, Sex, and the Body

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul continues to challenge the sexually immoral practices of the church in Corinth. The sexual drenched culture of Corinth assumed sex outside of marriage and with prostitutes (The Temple of Aphrodite was the center of the city). But Paul calls them to understand sex, the body, and their humans identity on the basis of who God is and what he has done. He invites them, and us, to look back at God’s design for sex and the body in Genesis 1-2, he looks ahead to the Resurrection and the restoration of all things–the “telos” of humanity (including sex and the body), and he grounds it all in the good new of Jesus Christ crucified and risen for us. This gives us the basis for our own anthropology: who are we, why are we here, and what is God’s original intent and ultimate telos for sex, the body, relationships and what it means to be human.