1 Corinthians 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul confronts the Corinthian believers for taking their disputes with each other to public courts instead of settling them among themselves, and tells them it would be better to accept being wronged than to sue a fellow believer. He then lists kinds of wrongdoing that shut people out of God's kingdom and reminds the readers that some of them once lived that way but have been washed, made holy, and made right with God. The chapter closes with an argument about the body: it belongs to the Lord, not to sexual sin, because it is a temple of the Holy Spirit and was bought at a price.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • Paul asks whether any of them, having a dispute against another, dares to go to court before the unrighteous
   • Paul asks why such a case is not brought before the saints instead
   • Paul implies lawsuits between believers should be judged by the saints, not by the unrighteous
2. 6:2
   • Paul asks whether they do not know that the saints will judge the world
   • The saints will judge the world
   • Paul asks, if the world is to be judged by them, whether they are unworthy to judge the smallest matters
3. 6:3
   • Paul asks whether they do not know that we will judge angels
   • Believers will judge angels
   • Paul argues that judging matters of this life is far less than judging angels
4. 6:4
   • Paul addresses the case where they have disputes about matters of this life
   • Paul says to seat as judges those who are least esteemed in the church
5. 6:5
   • Paul says he speaks this to their shame
   • Paul asks whether there is not one wise man among them
   • Paul asks whether there is no one able to arbitrate between a brother and his brother
6. 6:6
   • Instead, brother goes to law against brother
   • These lawsuits take place before unbelievers
7. 6:7
   • Paul says it is already an utter defeat for them that they have lawsuits with one another
   • Paul asks why they do not rather accept being wronged
   • Paul asks why they do not rather accept being defrauded
8. 6:8
   • Instead, they themselves do wrong
   • Instead, they themselves defraud
   • They do this wrong and defrauding to their own brothers
9. 6:9
   • Paul asks whether they do not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God
   • The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God
   • Paul commands them not to be deceived
   • The sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God
   • Idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of God
   • Adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God
   • Men who are the passive partners in homosexual acts will not inherit the kingdom of God
   • Men who lie with males will not inherit the kingdom of God
10. 6:10
    • Thieves will not inherit the kingdom of God
    • The greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God
    • Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God
    • Revilers will not inherit the kingdom of God
    • Swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God
11. 6:11
    • Some of them used to be such people
    • They were washed
    • They were sanctified
    • They were justified
    • This washing, sanctifying, and justifying was in the name of the Lord Jesus
    • This was also by the Spirit of our God
12. 6:12
    • Paul states that all things are lawful for him
    • Not all things are beneficial
    • Paul repeats that all things are lawful for him
    • Paul will not be brought under the power of anything
13. 6:13
    • Foods are for the belly
    • The belly is for foods
    • God will destroy both the belly and the foods
    • The body is not for sexual immorality
    • The body is for the Lord
    • The Lord is for the body
14. 6:14
    • God raised up the Lord
    • God will also raise us up
    • God will raise us up by his own power
15. 6:15
    • Paul asks whether they do not know that their bodies are members of Christ
    • Their bodies are members of Christ
    • Paul asks whether he should take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute
    • Paul rejects that outright
16. 6:16
    • Paul asks whether they do not know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her
    • He who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her
    • Scripture says that the two shall become one flesh
17. 6:17
    • He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him
18. 6:18
    • Paul commands them to flee sexual immorality
    • Every sin a person commits is outside the body
    • The one who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body
19. 6:19
    • Paul asks whether they do not know that their body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in them
    • Their body is the temple of the Holy Spirit
    • The Holy Spirit is in them
    • They have the Holy Spirit from God
    • They are not their own
20. 6:20
    • They were bought with a price
    • Paul commands them to glorify God in their body
    • Paul commands them to glorify God in their spirit
    • Their body and their spirit belong to God

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

"Saints" in the King James does not mean specially holy people. It translates a word meaning "those set apart," and Paul uses it for all members of the church. "The unjust" is likewise not mainly a charge that the judges are crooked; it is his ordinary word for those outside the church, set against the "set apart" ones inside it. Corinth was a Roman colony whose civil courts handled suits over money and property, and where a wealthier, better connected plaintiff normally held the advantage.

6:2

The verb translated "judge" covers both sitting as a judge at a trial and ruling or governing, the way the "judges" of the Old Testament book governed Israel. Paul does not say which sense he has in mind.

6:3

"Things that pertain to this life" simply means everyday matters, like arguments over money, land or property.

6:4

The Greek of this verse carries no punctuation, and it can be read two ways. As a question: do you really hand these cases to people the church counts for nothing? Or as a command: then appoint as judges even the members held in least regard, the point being that the humblest believer is still better than a pagan court. The rendering takes the first reading; the second is ancient and widely held.

6:5

"Brethren" means fellow members of the congregation, women included. "A wise man" has an edge to it: the Corinthians prided themselves on their wisdom, a theme Paul has been working since the first chapter.

6:7

"There is utterly a fault among you" translates a word meaning a defeat or a loss, drawn from the language of losing a contest or a lawsuit. The point is that before the case is even argued, they have already lost.

6:9

Two terms in this list are hard to pin down, and the King James renders them "effeminate" and "abusers of themselves with mankind." The first, malakoi, means literally "soft"; in that period it could describe a man taking the passive role in sex with another man, and could also carry a broader sense of self-indulgence or unmanliness. The second, arsenokoitai, is a rare compound meaning roughly "male-bedders," apparently coined from the wording of Leviticus in the Greek Old Testament. The precise scope of both words is disputed among scholars. "Fornicators" translates a word covering sexual wrongdoing generally, not one specific act.

6:10

"Covetous" means greedy for what belongs to someone else. "Revilers" attack people with cruel words. "Extortioners" get money out of people by threats or cheating.

6:11

All three verbs are passive: these are things done to them, not by them. "Sanctified" comes from the same root as "saints" in verse 1 and means set apart. "Justified" is a courtroom word meaning declared to be in the right, which lands pointedly in a chapter about lawsuits.

6:12

"All things are lawful unto me" is most likely a slogan the Corinthians themselves were using, which Paul quotes back and then qualifies; modern translations put it in quotation marks for that reason. "Expedient" in 1611 meant advantageous or good for you, with none of the modern suggestion of cutting corners. The Greek also turns on a pun that English cannot keep: everything is permitted to me, but I will not let anything take permission over me.

6:13

"Meats" in 1611 English meant food of any kind, not flesh in particular. "Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food" reads like another Corinthian slogan quoted back, as in verse 12.

6:14

Jesus died, and God made him alive again. That is what raised back to life means.

6:15

"Members" here means limbs and body parts, not members of an organization. "God forbid" translates a Greek phrase meaning simply "may it never be"; God is not named in the original. The King James uses this idiom throughout Paul's letters for his strongest possible denial.

6:16

The quoted words come from Genesis 2:24, the account of the first marriage. The King James "saith he" leaves the speaker vague because the Greek does: it is just "it says" or "he says," a standard way of introducing a scriptural quotation.

6:18

"Without the body" uses "without" in its older sense of outside, the opposite of within. Some readers take the whole clause, that every other sin is outside the body, as one more Corinthian slogan Paul quotes before answering it.

6:19

"Ghost" meant spirit in 1611 and carried no suggestion of a haunting. The word for "temple" here is not the whole temple precinct but the inner shrine, the room where the god was believed to actually live. Corinth was full of such shrines, so the image would have been immediate to the first hearers.

6:20

"Bought with a price" is the language of the slave market, where a sum changed hands and the person passed to a new owner. It follows directly on "ye are not your own." The closing words, "and in your spirit, which are God's," appear in the manuscripts the King James translators worked from but are missing from the oldest surviving copies, which is why most modern translations end the verse at "with your body."