Your body is a temple...

1. I have never liked making a fool of myself, despite the fact that I do it so easily. So I am particularly keen to help others not make my mistakes, especially when it comes to the Bible or theology. There's a lot floating around out there that we say with confidence, even though it may be obviously wrong.

I did a post a little over a month ago on soul and spirit in the Bible and on biblical words for hell. These are just things a pastor should know. A pastor should know that Sheol isn't the fiery hell and that soul in the OT isn't the detachable escape pod.

Here's another one. When 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, "You are God's temple," the "you" is plural. Paul's emphasis is not on me as an individual, as we Western individualists so easily assume. His emphasis is not that I am God's temple. His emphasis is that y'all at Corinth, together, are God's temple.

This makes perfect sense, if you think about it. In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul says that the congregation at Corinth is the body of Christ. And here he says that God's Spirit dwells in you. So we have a Spirit in a body, the collective body of Christ at Corinth. We have a collective body that is a temple, taken together.

You, plural, are the temple of God.

2. 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 is why it is especially hard for us not to go individual with this image. "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit" (6:19). The "your" and "you" are plural, but body is singular. I believe Paul is saying the same thing here. Your collective body [of Christ] is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

What makes it difficult for us Westerners is that Paul has been talking about those who take their individual, physical body to a prostitute. In 6:15, he talked about their plural "bodies." It's a play on words. When an individual takes his body to a prostitute, he is corrupting the collective body of Christ. The individual body is a "member" of the corporate body of Christ.

This is a hard train of thought for us. It's not the way our culture thinks. What I do with my individual body, I do with the collective body of Christ.

Bottom line, this verse really isn't about not smoking or respecting my physical body out of respect for my Creator. It really isn't the "don't smoke" verse. It's about not defiling the church by involving myself with uncleanness.

I've written a bit on Corinthians, if you're interested. See here and here.