1 Corinthians 6:13
“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
This is a powerful statement about God’s purposes for how we live in this world. It addresses two major concerns of our age: food and sexuality. These are two key drives within the human psyche for survival and propagation of our species. Most interpreters think that Paul is quoting the Corinthians or a common proverb of the day. Food is important but temporary. God has created us to need food. But fortunately, we do not have to eat one thing like grass. We are gifted with the ability to enjoy many kinds of foods. In fact, just about anything that does not kill us (and even some things that will) has been made into food. So much of our lives revolve around food: earning the money to buy, cooking it, cleaning up after it, spending time with family and friends around us. Even this awesome blessing is temporary because our bodies will some day die. I work with dying people every day. Towards the end of one’s life, usually the last week or two, a person no longer desires or needs food. The body begins to shut down.
What we do with our body is crucial to our spiritual development. Paul begins to deal with a problem in the Corinthian church: sexual immorality. This is a huge problem in our day. The principle is clear: God created our bodies to be used for His glory. Even though our bodies are temporary, prone to hunger, thirst, and tiredness, they are the “tents” in which we as persons dwell. This is it: pretty, ugly, fat, thin, sick, healthy, whatever our bodies are like, this is where God has us. We ought to treat our bodies are treasures from God to be used for His kingdom. A great passage to read based on this next section of the letter is Romans 6 and how our bodies can be used as instruments of righteousness: to be used by God for God’s glory.
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