Teen Scene: 3rd Quarter 2014

You Are Not Your Own

1 CORINTHIANS 6:12-20

RESOURCES NEEDED

•   New National Baptist Hymnal, 21st Century Edition #218 (NNBH #129)

•   God’s Promises Bible

•   Boyd’s Commentary for the Sunday School

UNIFYING PRINCIPLE

Personal, moral, and physical purity are beneficial to the community. How does the behavior of one person affect the whole community? Paul said that because Christians are all one within the body of Christ, what harms one will harm other members, and what benefits one will benefit all.

BIBLICAL EMPHASES:

1.   Paul wants the Christian community to know that believers shouldn’t indulge themselves or be controlled by their bad habits and choices.

2.   When we become Christians, our bodies no longer belong to us but are temples for God and should be kept pure.

3.   Marriage is a divine gift from God that should be cherished and respected. Sexual relations outside of marriage are immoral.

TARGET EMPHASIS

SEEKERS FOR JESUS: Younger youth are adjusting to their changing bodies while trying to cope with daily exposure to sexual information, both good and bad.

TEEN SCENE: Older teens may have friends who are sexually active or may be sexually active themselves. They already know that it is a sin but likely do not consider how their actions affect themselves or others.

LESSON OVERVIEW

I. Our Bodies Matter

(1 Corinthians 6:12-14)

Most of what we know about Paul actually comes from Luke’s accounts in the book of Acts. Luke wrote that Paul established the church in Corinth and lived there for about eighteen months (see Acts 18:11). Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written in part to answer questions from a letter they had sent to him after he moved but also so that he could address issues in Corinth that others had told him about. Although there were some Jews in the church, the congregation was most likely predominately Gentile. In this letter, the central conflict is between the Corinthian believers, not Paul and the Corinthians. He spent very little time establishing himself except at such times that he could be held as an example.

One major issue of the Corinthian church was the discrepancy of knowledge among the believers. Corinth was a highly educated city. Some of the believers thought that their knowledge made them more spiritual Christians than others. Paul refuted this false pride. These educated Christians may have also been quite rich; thus, the disparity of wealth in the Corinthian church also yielded several disputes.

In the verses chosen out of chapter six for this lesson, Paul argued against what seems to be a Corinthian slogan: ‘All things are lawful for me’ (1 Cor. 6:12, NRSV). An attitude of depreciating the body’s importance likely arose as a result of Platonic philosophy. Plato’s theory of forms assumed that two realms exist—an unseen existence that is the purest reality and our physical world, which is a mere shadow of the true reality. Taken to logical conclusions, this philosophy asserts that what is physical is of little or no value. This led to Corinthian Christians acting as though their bodies were unimportant as long as they continued to nurture their spiritual lives.

Such attitudes are not in line with biblical teachings about our bodies. Paul made this point when he said, God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power (v. 14, NRSV). Jesus was not resurrected as a mere spirit; although His body was somehow transformed, Jesus was still Himself in the flesh.

II. Purity in the Body

(1 Corinthians 6:15-20)

Paul’s argument seemed to center for a moment on food, but he was really making a move toward speaking against extramarital sexual activity. The Corinthians perhaps believed that fornication (a broad word in Greek used to cover a variety of sexual activities) was not sinful because the body was going to be destroyed anyway. Thus whatever activities they engaged in were only a way to satisfy a lower physical craving, like eating food when hungry. Paul’s example of prostitution would have been unnecessary in a Jewish context, in which prostitution had always been considered outside of God’s will and laws. In the Roman Empire, however, visiting prostitutes was a widely-accepted practice for men, married or not, to satisfy their sexual desires. (This would not have been true for women.) Especially in such an enlightened city as Corinth, sex was just another activity to be done with one’s body and it was not considered a spiritual matter.

Besides arguing that the body did matter, as evidenced by Jesus’ bodily resurrection, Paul went on to argue that our bodies were no longer our own. Christ lives in us. As a result, sex between a Christian and a prostitute unites Christ with a prostitute. He asked a rhetorical question in verse nineteen, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? (v. 19, NRSV). Our bodies are temples of God; what we do with them matters.

Myriad problems exist when discussing sex with youth. At church, the message they hear is often, Sex is bad, even when that is not the intended message. In the wider culture, they hear something very similar to what the Corinthians were hearing: Sex is a natural urge; it’s your decision, so do what you want. Of course, neither of these stances is the truth. Sex is very good; God created it as a gift not only for procreation but for the ways the physical union mirrors a more mystical, spiritual union between two people. The gift of sex is to be used within the boundaries of marriage.

Boundaries may not sound like fun for teens, but the truth is they want and need boundaries just as children or adults also do. Youth want their parents to be involved in their lives but not too involved. Boyfriends and girlfriends want to feel love and respect without manipulation or loss of personal identity. Youth want boundaries that allow them to feel safe but also to make their own mistakes. Making these boundaries can be difficult for parents and teens, let alone teens with their peers. However, boundaries keep relationships healthy. Boundaries for sex function similarly.

Part of the problem is that sex is often considered the business of only the two who are engaging in it. Yet the relationships involved are not just those two. Consider extramarital affairs: is such sex a matter only between the married person and his or her partner? Absolutely not! It involves the spouse, children, faith communities, and perhaps many other people as well. The sexual act itself may involve only two persons, but the repercussions are much wider and likely will outlast the sexual relationship. Human nature is selfish, and teenagers can be especially selfish. Pretending that sex is a decision for a couple to make is selfish and fails to consider what God wants and what is good for the entire community.

Again, sex is often presented as bad, and any teenager who has already engaged in sex is likely to be labeled bad by their peers if not by adults. Be aware that there are likely youth in your class who have either been labeled bad or feel they ought to be labeled bad. They need to know that sexual sin is not the end of their journey with God. Certainly, it should be condemned, but we serve a loving God. He