Temple of the Spirit

Who does your body belong to? Most of us would answer without stopping to think: it belongs to me.

Some of us treat our bodies like machines. We run them hard and plan to pay the bill in a later decade. Others speak about their bodies in words they would never let a friend use about a friend. Those two habits seem to pull in opposite directions, yet they grow from the same root, and most of us manage both in the same week.

Paul is writing to Corinth about this very thing. The Corinthians had a favourite slogan, and he quotes it back to them: "All things are lawful unto me." He is telling them to "Flee fornication," and the reason he gives is about who owns the body. The Greek word he uses for "temple" here does not mean the whole temple site, with its courts and its traders. It means the inner room, the holy place where the crowds never went. That is what Paul says your body is: the room where the Holy Spirit lives. Then comes the sentence that does the real work: "ye are not your own." The next verse gives the reason, and it has nothing to do with how healthy or impressive your body is: "For ye are bought with a price."

That truth cuts both ways, though we usually want it to cut only one way. It rules out doing whatever we like with our bodies. It also rules out despising them. Both habits are the way an owner behaves, and you are not the owner.

So the true answer is different from the one most of us give. Your body belongs to the One who bought it, and He lives in it. That means you can stop driving it into the ground, and you can stop cursing it in the mirror. Paul finishes the thought with its purpose: "therefore glorify God in your body." A body that God paid for and lives in is worth caring for, and it is never worth hating.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 296 is The Fat and the Strong (Ezekiel 34:16).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna