Five-minute study · Day 62 · 1 Corinthians 6
1 Corinthians 6:19
A word worth stopping on: temple ναός naos
Your body is a naos of the Holy Spirit. Paul does not use the general word for the temple complex. He uses the specific word for the inner sanctuary, the room where God's presence dwelt behind the curtain. The Holy of Holies. The place only the high priest entered, once a year, with blood on his hands and incense in the air. Paul looks at your body and says that is where God lives now. The innermost chamber has an address, and it is you.
Word study: temple
- Greek
- ναός
- Pronounced
- naos
- Strong's
- G3485
- Definition
- The inner sanctuary of a temple, the holy place where the deity dwells. Distinct from hieron, which designates the entire temple complex including courts and colonnades.
Greek has two words for temple, and the difference matters. Hieron refers to the entire temple precinct: the outer courts, the porticoes, the market stalls, everything within the boundary walls. Naos refers specifically to the inner chamber, the dwelling place of the god. Trench, in 'Synonyms of the New Testament,' explains that hieron is where the people go; naos is where the deity lives.
When the Gospels describe Jesus teaching in the temple courts, the word is hieron. When they describe the curtain torn at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:51), the word is naos, because the curtain separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, both within the inner sanctuary.
Paul's choice in 1 Corinthians 6:19 is deliberate. He does not say your body is a hieron, a general sacred space where activity happens. He says your body is a naos, the specific room where God's presence resides. BDAG confirms the distinction: naos is 'the inner part of a temple, the sanctuary itself.' The Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple was a cube, thirty feet in each dimension, overlaid in gold, containing the ark of the covenant and the cherubim. Paul transfers that imagery to human flesh. Your body houses the presence of God in the same way that gold-lined room housed the ark.
The Corinthians lived in a city with prominent temples. The Temple of Apollo stood in the city center. The Temple of Aphrodite sat on the Acrocorinth above. Every Corinthian understood the difference between the outer courts where they walked and the inner room they could never enter. Paul says the Spirit has moved into the room no one else can access.
Historical context · First century AD
Temples Everywhere and the One That Mattered
Corinth in the mid-first century was saturated with sacred architecture. Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies have uncovered remains of temples to Apollo, Aphrodite, Asklepios, Demeter, and Poseidon. Sacred prostitution, once debated by scholars, is now considered less likely at the Temple of Aphrodite than older scholarship assumed, but Strabo's claim (Geography 8.6.20) that the temple once housed a thousand sacred courtesans shaped Corinth's reputation for centuries.
The Temple of Asklepios, the healing god, included dining rooms where worshippers ate meals dedicated to the deity. Paul addresses this practice directly in 1 Corinthians 8-10: eating food offered to idols. The physical overlap between pagan worship and daily life in Corinth was total. Temples were social centers, event venues, and restaurants. Separating religious practice from civic life was nearly impossible.
Paul's immediate context in chapter 6 is sexual immorality. Some Corinthian believers were visiting prostitutes and defending the practice with the slogan 'All things are lawful for me' (6:12). Paul's response builds to the naos declaration: your body belongs to the Holy Spirit, who lives in the inner sanctuary of you. The argument is architectural. You would not take the Holy of Holies to a brothel. You would not drag the inner chamber through a transaction that violates its purpose.
The Jerusalem temple still stood when Paul wrote this letter (around 55 AD). The Corinthians could picture a real naos with a real curtain and a real presence behind it. Paul says that presence has relocated. It lives in you.
For reflection
Paul chose the word for the innermost room, the one behind the curtain. Consider your body today: tired, aging, imperfect, carrying whatever it carries. The Holy Spirit's address is the inner sanctuary itself, the you, right now, in whatever physical condition you are reading this. What changes about how you treat yourself when you take the word naos seriously?
The high priest prepared carefully before entering the naos. Reverence was built into every step.
Sources: Trench, 'Synonyms of the New Testament'; BDAG Lexicon; Fee, '1 Corinthians' (NICNT)