Bible Strands
1 Corinthians 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Paul writes to the Corinthian church mid-argument, having just told them that sexual sin is unique in being committed against one's own body (6:18). He now supplies the theological ground for that claim before pivoting to the purchase-price argument in 6:20.
The words — ναός (naos) is the specific term for the inner sanctuary of the temple building, not the broader οἰκία (household); Paul applies this to the individual body, not merely the collective assembly.
The thread — 1 Corinthians 3:16 uses the same formula (you are God's temple; the Spirit dwells in you) but of the community as a whole; 2 Corinthians 6:16 and 1 Peter 2:5 extend the temple language to the believer's relationship with God's presence.
Why it lands — The verse strips the reader of ownership: "You are not your own" means the body is not a private domain in which one may do as one pleases. The demand is not moralism but stewardship of something that belongs to another.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
Cross-references
- 1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
- 2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”
- 1 Peter 2:5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- Ephesians 2:21 In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
- Psalms 100:3 Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
- 1 Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
- Titus 2:14 He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
- Romans 14:7 For none of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone.
- John 2:21 But Jesus was speaking about the temple of His body.
- 2 Corinthians 5:15 And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.