1 Corinthians 6:19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
Study Note
Study Note
Paul's rhetorical question — 'know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?' — grounds sexual ethics in a pneumatology that has no parallel in the surrounding Greco-Roman world. In the Greek world, bodily acts were generally regarded as morally indifferent (the libertine slogan 'food is for the stomach' in 6:13), but Paul insists that the body is the Spirit's dwelling — making bodily choices a form of theological statement. The Temple imagery connects to 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, where the community as a whole is the Temple, and here extends to the individual body of each believer. The concluding obligation — 'you are not your own… glorify God in your body' (6:19-20) — derives ethics from the doctrine of redemption and indwelling.
Other Translations
Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own;
Have ye not known that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own,
Or are you not conscious that your body is a house for the Holy Spirit which is in you, and which has been given to you by God? and you are not the owners of yourselves;
Cross References
And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and …
But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this …
Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we …
But he spake of the temple of his body.
For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead …
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and …
What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall …