You Were Bought with a High Price

Meditations in First Corinthians 

May 11, 2022

You Were Bought with a High Price

Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Read: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

In his commentary, William Barclay, writes that the city of Corinth had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but it was also a byword for evil living. To say a person lived like a Corinthian meant they lived with drunken and immoral debauchery. Above the city towered the hill of the Acropolis, and on it stood the great temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To that temple, there were attached one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes. In the evenings, they came down from the Acropolis and plied their trade on the streets of Corinth. Remember the background of Corinth, remember its name, synonymous for wealth and luxury, for drunkenness and immorality and vice, and then read again chapter 6.

Paul began chapter 6 of his letter to the Romans with this statement: “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not!” He seems to have taken a similar tack in today’s passage as he is dealing with the notion that God’s grace liberates the believer to do whatever they want.

In contrast to this, Paul believed the Kingdom is about the individual followers of Jesus living by God’s power to change their lives. Paul is affirming that the followers of Christ in the Corinthian Church had experienced God’s power to change their lives. Paul insists that a Christian should never lose sight of living by God’s power to change lives. Why? “You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price” (6:19b-20a). 

My Takeaway: Paul’s closing words, quoted above, remind me of that line in my favorite prayer:

I am not my own, I am Thine. By creation and redemption I am Thine.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.