1 Corinthians 6:20
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Study Note
Study Note
The double imperative 'glorify God in your body' concludes Paul's argument that the body, as a member of Christ and temple of the Spirit, cannot be given to a prostitute without defiling the very sanctuary of God. The market metaphor 'bought with a price' (ēgorasthēte timēs) draws on slave-redemption practice, presenting the Christian's body as now belonging to God through purchase rather than to the self through autonomy. The verse represents Paul's most direct counter to Corinthian libertinism ('all things are lawful,' 6:12), which spiritualised salvation in a way that treated bodily behaviour as morally indifferent. Paul's insistence on bodily sanctification anticipates his extended treatment of bodily resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, where the body's eschatological destiny grounds its present moral dignity.
Other Translations
for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.
for ye were bought with a price; glorify, then, God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
For a payment has been made for you: let God be honoured in your body.
Cross References
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is …
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, …
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your …
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable …
Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, …
According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, …
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy …
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation …