Honor Yourself in God || Boundaries for Your Sexuality || Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of the “Boundaries for Your Sexuality” Bible study. This study takes a deep look at sexual immorality. We’re looking at the original Greek, legalistic definitions, and denominational perspectives to understand what sexual immorality looks like in our world today. This is our working definition for our series:

Sexual immorality: committing sexual acts or being nude with the intent to accomplish sexual satisfaction, obtain money, satisfy lustful desires, and/or obtain gratification with someone(s) in a noncommittal manner in a way that can involve a variety of forms of abuse, force, and/or inhumane treatment of those involved.

In Part 2, we look at sexual immorality and homosexuality and the perspective of qualifications to be a Christian. We need to be aware of those who commit acts of sexual immorality and justify them. Still, we can be inclusive of those who live a non-heteronormative lifestyle. We took the words of Peter in Acts 15 to remind us that we are all saved by God’s undeserving grace, and all of us are welcome into the Kingdom of God. God doesn’t reject those who live a non-heteronormative lifestyle, which should be the foundation for the church.

In Part 3, we’re looking at 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 to talk about sexual immorality and how it defiles our body.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

AMP	12 Everything is permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything [and brought under its power, allowing it to control me.] 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will do away with both of them. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body [to save, sanctify, and raise it again because of the sacrifice of the cross]. 14 And God has not only raised the Lord [to life], but will also raise us up by His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Am I therefore to take members of Christ and make them part of a prostitute? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall be one flesh.” 17 But the one who is united and joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Run away from sexual immorality [in any form, whether thought or behavior, whether visual or written.] Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the one who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, who you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]? 20 You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body.
NLT	12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything” – but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. 13 You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though some God will do away with both of them.}  But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 14 And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead. 15 Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The twos are united into one.” 17 But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
MSG	12 Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims. 13 You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body! 14-15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not. 16-20 There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much a spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever – the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

So many thoughts are running through my head right now that I want to dive into before I get into the actual Bible study notes. Regarding 6:15 in the AMP translation, the church in Corinth was famous for its prostitutes, and many (if not all) probably practiced their trade in connection with the worship of Aphrodite. (The Greek Goddess of sexual love and beauty) Having relations with temple or cult prostitutes was considered acceptable behavior by the people of Corinth, and Paul’s admonitions here show us that some of the Corinthians who converted to Christianity were continuing the practice. This is important for us to understand because the sexual immorality Paul talks about is regarding prostitution. It’s easy for church leaders to use this verse to umbrella this to include pornography, masturbation, transgenderism, and more. The context of this is prostitution.

1 Corinthians 6:13, 18

13           You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though some God will do away with both of them.}  But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies.

18           Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.

All while writing and reading through the different translations, the rise of OnlyFans came into my mind. Is OnlyFans categorized as sexual immorality, at least based on the definition that we’re using in this series? It can fall under committing sexual acts to get money and/or gratification, but some accounts aren’t like that (and even OnlyFans as a company is trying to move away from that). It falls under the noncommittal mindset, even though you need to subscribe to different profiles (commit to a financial transaction and a decision to receive their content). There’s an internal wrestling going on inside of me, arguing back and forth as to whether that’s immoral or not. One side argues that it’s safe, playful, and guarded. You can learn about your sexuality by exploring different aspects of sexual activity and relationships without the risk of STDs, physical relationships, etc. The other side argues that you lose the mystery of sex in a physical relationship, and the passion for it dwindles the longer your subscription lasts. One side argues from a lifestyle perspective, and the other argues from a theological one. There are gray areas all around this. However, after vocalizing all this to you, here’s what I conclude from my own internal convictions.

Why would someone start a sexual OnlyFans account? They could have done it as a job, especially when the website increased in traction over the pandemic. We couldn’t leave our homes during that time and had to learn ways to live from our dwelling place. They could have done it as a response to body-shaming they received, a lack of self-confidence they once had, or something in between. As long as your reason is something that honors God. Use your account as a safe space for exploration, compassion, and teaching or as a voice for the oppressed and voiceless. Doing it because you’re chasing the clout, the bag, or the dopamine is where your reasoning is flawed and concerning. How you use your income is also important. It is concerning if you’re using your income for lavish living and luxuries on social media. Using your income to support key social justice causes or support involvement in your community is God-honoring.

Why would someone subscribe to a sexual OnlyFans account? It could be for loneliness, looking for a companion, looking for a safe person, or looking for something in between. It could be for safe experimenting. Some people are exploring what their sexual preferences are, what brings them pleasure and comfort, and what brings them feelings of disgust and discomfort. Digital or virtual ways of exploring help keep those experimenting safe from most physical diseases (not all, because some self-pleasure practices can lead to disease if not properly taken care of.) It’s a place where they can feel judgment-free and express themselves. What you indulge in, though, needs to be respectable to God. Purchasing content that exploits humans, shares sexual acts as both power heavy and domination, glorifies sexual misconduct, and everything that falls into that spectrum or is related to that spectrum is harmful to both mind and spirit.

Sex and related sexual activities are passionate things that can happen full of love, care, and commitment between two consenting people. Succumbing to content that manipulates that mindset ruins the idea God had behind sex and how we can teach that respectably to our future generations. Sex is more than just procreation; it is a connection between two consenting adults that strengthens a romantic relationship and marriage. When we conduct sexual activities outside of that spectrum, we’re allowing those soul ties to happen everywhere and the weight that those carry to crush us and social relationships. They become so predominant and so intense that we look for ways to continue riding that high until there’s a balance, and that high can take us down some very concerning paths.

I’ve spent way longer talking about this than I thought I would, but I wanted to share my wrestling because I feel like I’m not alone in that experience. If you’re starting, have, or want to have a sexual OnlyFans or related account, be sure to honor God with your body and the content you produce. Creating content that abuses yourself, others, or the concepts of what sex should look like for money or clout is harmful in multiple ways. If you’re subscribing to sexual content, be sure to be safe about what you watch and what you respond to it with. Don’t do or watch anything that can distort your vision of what sex should be. There’s a lot of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual harm when we look at sex from an immoral perspective. With that said, let’s get on to what Paul says in this passage.

Many of the world’s religions teach that the soul is important, but the body isn’t. Christianity takes on some of these teachings, but it takes the physicality of the body very seriously. We worship a God who created the physical world and called it good. He promises us a new earth where his created people will have transformed physical lives, not a cloud where disembodied souls listen to harp music (a stereotypical version of heaven.) The heart of Christianity shows the story of God himself taking on flesh and blood and coming to live with us, offering both physical healing and spiritual restoration. Our bodies are just as important to God as our spirit is. Our bodies are his creation, and his creation is always good. When we turn our lives over to God and receive the Holy Spirit in our hearts, Paul encourages us not to defile our hearts (with sexual immorality in this passage specifically) to keep a pure and holy place for the Holy Spirit and prevent any further defilement to do the work that he’s created us to do.

At the end of the day, we are a combination of dust and the breath of God. (Yes, I’m aware that human reproductivity is more than that, but from a biblical creationist perspective this is the truth.) Just as our spirits affect our bodies, our physical bodies affect our spirits. Think of those moments when you eat a bunch of junk food and consume a bunch of caffeine. You might feel good in the short term but awful in the long run. You might feel fatigued or nauseated. pained, or some combination of the sort. When we commit sinful actions with our bodies, we damage our souls. The two are inseparably joined. Now in the new earth, our resurrected bodies (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-50) will be uncorrupted by sin. It’s there we will find the fullness of our salvation.

Christianity gives us freedom from sin and guilt and freedom to use and enjoy the things that come from God. However, we shouldn’t abuse this freedom and hurt ourselves or others. The downfall of our society is often the overwhelming paths of decision-making. There are often many choices to make every decision daily, each having its own branches of consequences and results. We’re free to make any good, bad, or indifferent decisions. Some decisions honor God and some rebel against him. God trusts us enough to make the right decisions, teaching us and showing us how Jesus navigated the earthly life. God loves us regardless. Even when we abuse our enjoyment and turn them into addictions, God doesn’t hold that guilt and shame against us. We will have the consequences of our actions, but it’s all in love (much as a healthy parent would for their child). God forgives and forgets, but Satan continues to play the record of shame and guilt into our heads.

Some churches have been quoting and misapplying the words: “I am allowed to do anything.” Some Christians in the Corinth church were excusing their sin, justifying it by saying that since Jesus took away their sin (through his death on the cross), they could do whatever they wanted. They were doing things that were not strictly forbidden in Scripture. This has been a major sticking point in the churches today. What do the words Paul wrote to Corinth in AD 50-60 mean for us in 2024? We continue to learn, unpack, course-correct, and double-down on certain teachings to make sure. Using the “it was for THAT audience” mindset to “The Bible says it, that settles it.” mindset. Christians and church leaders continue to argue about the specifics of sexual immorality. Is masturbation wrong? Is pre-marital sex wrong? Is watching porn wrong? Some of these items aren’t mentioned directly in scripture, so we believe that we can do it. It’s why the working definition of sexual immorality that this series is based on doesn’t focus on specific acts but mindsets. It’s looking at the reasoning of why we’d commit sexual acts and if that reason is something that honors God or is something that we desire.

Paul responded to what the Corinth church said in many ways. These responses are something that we can take away today:

• While Christ took away our sin, this doesn’t give us freedom to go on doing what we know is wrong because doing so shows that our sinful nature is still leading the way. There is a still small voice that speaks to us at all times, and you may be doing a sexual act, and that voice says, “Is this right? Is this something we should be doing? Is this healthy?” The voice is God calling us on our decision-making and mindset and causes us to wrestle with why we believe what we were doing was right and whether or not God honors it or how we can change our ways.
• Some actions are not sinful in themselves, but they are not appropriate because they can control our lives and lead us away from God. We can become addicted to the feelings of sexual actions and sexual responses. Serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin are chemicals that we crave and need. When we receive them in an unhealthy routine and addiction, these chemicals will lead the charge with our thoughts, desires, and actions. These responses can harm both yourself and those around you because you will do whatever is needed to achieve the responses of these chemicals in whatever way possible.

Sexual immorality is an ever-present temptation. There will always be a time in our lives, especially nowadays, when we can act on our sexual desires, thoughts, and responses. Movies, shows, music videos, TikToks, IG Reels, Facebook Stories, Snapchat, and Twitter/X feeds can all distort the original idea of what sex and a sexual relationship are to look like. Christians have taught that purity, abstinence, sexual wholeness, and related topics are boring, dull, and lifeless ways of living. God wants you to have a healthy sexual relationship; he just doesn’t want you having sex and doing sexual acts freely with whoever walks into your life or feeds. God knows the power of sex and how it can destroy us in every way possible. Sexual immorality has ruined countless lives and many relationships. God wants to teach and protect us from damaging ourselves and others, so he offers to fulfill us with himself. I’m not saying that God wants to have sex with us, but God wants an intimate relationship with us. God wants us to share our deepest fears, darkest secrets, greatest hopes, and more as we would with a significant other. How we want our committed relationships should be replicative of our relationship with God.

This study has made me want to rewrite the definition a bit more because we’re missing a key element: God’s goal of a healthy relationship with proper boundaries. Let’s give a rewrite a shot here:

Sexual Immorality: committing sexual acts or being nude with someone(s) outside of the boundaries of a healthy, God-led romantic relationship with the intent to accomplish sexual satisfaction, obtain money, satisfy lustful desires, or obtain gratification in a noncommittal manner in a way that can involve a variety of forms of abuse, force and/or inhuman treatment of those involved. (Changes are italicized.)

God doesn’t want you to think of sex as a dull, routine part of living. Sex can be fun, exciting, passionate, and an emotional part of your life. God doesn’t want you to be squandering your identity or your humanity to yourself or to others in the hopes of gaining those fun chemicals mentioned earlier.

Christians are free to be all they can be for God, but they must stay in line with God’s plan of healthy and holy living. God created sex to be a beautiful and essential ingredient of healthy romantic relationships, but sexual sin always hurts someone. It hurts God because it shows that our allegiance is to our desires instead of the Holy Spirit. It hurts others because it violates the needed commitment to a trusting relationship. It hurts our body, mind, and soul through corruption and potential damage.

Paul reminds the Corinth church and us that our bodies belong to God. Many people believe that they can do whatever they want to their bodies. God gives us freedom to choose, but there are boundaries to what that looks like. Expressionistic movements are happening with people who are getting tattoos, dying their hair any color on the spectrum, wearing outfits that are outside the general norm, and all of that is good. When we treat our body as anything less than the good creation that God made, then we’re in trouble.

When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us; therefore, we no longer own our bodies. Our bodies become a temporary residence for the Holy Spirit until we return to heaven in our eternal living. Christ’s death freed us from sin but also obligated us to follow his commandments. Because our bodies belong to God, we need to continue keeping his standard of living.

I’m done for today. We talked about SO much today that I can’t summarize everything. All I can say is that you need to honor your body in your sexual relationships because God wants you happy, healthy, and holy. Part 4 takes us into the book of Colossians to talk about stripping off the old way of living and putting on the new Christlike way. Until then, stay blessed!