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Sex Is Worship · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: You may recalled. Back in January of this year, we
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  Speaker 1: returned to the sensitive topic of sexuality and whether sex
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  Speaker 1: is as dangerous as Christians make it out to be
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  Speaker 1: or is it just harmless fun? Harmless recreation was a
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  Speaker 1: question from a college student and the kind of question
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  Speaker 1: we would certainly expect from someone who is living in
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  Speaker 1: a hyper sexualized culture like the one that we live
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  Speaker 1: in today. That episode was in APGA twenty two to
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  Speaker 1: twenty three. Pastor John, you mentioned there only briefly and
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  Speaker 1: in passing One Corinthian six verses eighteen to twenty. That
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  Speaker 1: texts in our navigator's Bible reading plan this week, so
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  Speaker 1: it's a good time to return there and to dwell
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  Speaker 1: on the text a little more today on Ask Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: Sex is about worship? A listener to the podcast, Sarah
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  Speaker 1: in Portland, Oregon, writes and asked this question Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: Hello to you and thank you for ask Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: As I read in One Corinthian six eighteen to twenty,
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  Speaker 1: Paul Warren's believers to flee from sexual morality, emphasizing that
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  Speaker 1: our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and should
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  Speaker 1: be honored as such. Temple strikes me, how and why
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  Speaker 1: do sex and worship come together in Paul's mind in
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  Speaker 1: this text.
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  Speaker 2: I think Sarah has put her finger on something really
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  Speaker 2: significant in this text by using the word worship. Even
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  Speaker 2: though the word worship does not occur in this text.
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  Speaker 2: What the text says is flee from sexual immorality. Every
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  Speaker 2: other sin. That's the ESV translation that word other. I'll
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  Speaker 2: come back to that. Every other sin a person commits
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  Speaker 2: is outside the body. But the sexually immoral person sins
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  Speaker 2: against his own body. Or do you not know that
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  Speaker 2: your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
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  Speaker 2: whom you have from God. You are not your own
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  Speaker 2: You were bought with a price, So glorify God in
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  Speaker 2: your body. So Sarah is inferring the activity of worship
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  Speaker 2: because Paul brings this bodily action of sexual immorality into
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  Speaker 2: relationship with God, the Spirit of God, the glory of God,
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  Speaker 2: the temple of God. So when Sarah sees that connection,
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  Speaker 2: she's inferring, Well, that has to do with worship, I
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  Speaker 2: mean temple of God. Right, that has to do with worship.
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  Speaker 2: And indeed that's true because worship is the act of
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  Speaker 2: glorifying God, praising God, honoring him, loving God, treasuring God,
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  Speaker 2: delighting in God. That's what worship is, and that's where
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  Speaker 2: the text ends, namely, glorify God, worship God in your
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  Speaker 2: body or with your body. And Sarah's asking how and
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  Speaker 2: why do sex and worship come together in Paul's mind? Now,
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  Speaker 2: one way to answer that question is to focus for
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  Speaker 2: a moment on verse eighteen, which is extremely difficult to interpret.
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  Speaker 2: He says, flee sexual immorality. Now that part's clear, that's
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  Speaker 2: not difficult to interpret. Stop sleeping around. Flee sexual immorality.
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  Speaker 2: Then he says every sin, and the word other is
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  Speaker 2: not there in the original does every other sin? Just
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  Speaker 2: says every sin a person commits is outside the body. Now,
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  Speaker 2: if those are Paul's words, what in the world does
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  Speaker 2: he mean? Frankly, I have never read any satisfactory interpretation
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  Speaker 2: of this text which construe those words to be Paul's
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  Speaker 2: own words. So here's what I'm going to suggest. I
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  Speaker 2: think those words in the middle of verse eighteen are
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  Speaker 2: a slogan used by the false teachers in Krinth to
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  Speaker 2: say that the body is insignificant when it comes to
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  Speaker 2: morality and sin. So the paraphrase would go something like
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  Speaker 2: this flee sexual immorality. Those are Paul's words, flee sexual immorality.
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  Speaker 2: And yes, I know that some of you at Corinth
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  Speaker 2: are saying sin is not a matter that has anything
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  Speaker 2: to do with the physical or the bodily. It's just
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  Speaker 2: spiritual and moral, and the body is of no moral consequence.
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  Speaker 2: I'm aware of that teaching in your church. I've already
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  Speaker 2: referred to it up in verse thirteen, and so I'm
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  Speaker 2: now telling you. And then he goes on and gives
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  Speaker 2: his counsel about how important the body is, and he says,
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  Speaker 2: but the sexually immoral person does in facts in against
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  Speaker 2: his own body. The body really does matter morally. And
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  Speaker 2: then he goes on to prove this by introducing the
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  Speaker 2: issue of worship. So let me say a word why
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  Speaker 2: I think that's the case. Why I interpret verse eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: The middle of verse eighteen is a quote from the
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  Speaker 2: bad guys at Corinth, the false teachers at Carinth, instead
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  Speaker 2: of Paul's own words. Just five verses earlier, five verses.
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  Speaker 2: If you got the ESV you can see the quote
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  Speaker 2: marks where the translators have in fact cited a slogan's
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  Speaker 2: from the false teachers. There aren't any quote marks in Greek.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, these are editorial translator decisions where to
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  Speaker 2: regard something as having quote marks around it, so we
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  Speaker 2: don't know from the original Greek text where their quote
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  Speaker 2: marks were, if there were any in Paul's mind. So
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  Speaker 2: here's the example, verse thirteen. There are quote marks around this.
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  Speaker 2: Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food,
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  Speaker 2: so quotes are around that. I agree. I think that's
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  Speaker 2: a slogan of the false teachers in Kart and that
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  Speaker 2: they are saying something very similar to every sin is
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  Speaker 2: outside the body. In other words, bodies just don't matter
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  Speaker 2: when it comes to moral and immoral. The stomach is
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  Speaker 2: about food, it's not about sin. Paul, Good grief lighting up,
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  Speaker 2: you know, to which Paul responds in exactly the same
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  Speaker 2: way he does in verse eighteen. He says in the
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  Speaker 2: middle of verse thirteen, the body is for the Lord.
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  Speaker 2: That's the same point he's making in verses eighteen to
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  Speaker 2: twenty when he says, glorify God with your body. The
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  Speaker 2: body is for the Lord. It really really matters. And
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  Speaker 2: your false teachers are wrong in thinking that every sin
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  Speaker 2: is outside the body. Has nothing to do with the body.
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  Speaker 2: So the reason Paul introduces the reality of worship this
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  Speaker 2: is getting to the answer of her question. The reason
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  Speaker 2: Paul introduces this reality of worship into the context of
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  Speaker 2: sexual immorality is because there were people in Corinth and
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  Speaker 2: there are people today who use the body in fornication
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  Speaker 2: and say it's just recreation for goodness sakes. It's not
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  Speaker 2: certainly designed for adoration like the worship. Fornication is recreation,
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  Speaker 2: not adoration. Fiber and Paul and Bible teachers, having sex
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  Speaker 2: at the end of a date is no more moral
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  Speaker 2: or immorl than eating dinner or going for a jog
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  Speaker 2: for goodness sakes. The use of the body to get
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  Speaker 2: tangled up in bed is simply not a moral issue.
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  Speaker 2: Killing people is a moral issue, Stealing is a moral issue.
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  Speaker 2: Lying is a moral issue. What we do with our bodies,
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  Speaker 2: whether eating or jogging or having sex, is simply of
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  Speaker 2: no moral significance. And in response to that, then and now,
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  Speaker 2: Paul brings the use of the body in eating and
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  Speaker 2: drinking and sex and every other way. He brings the
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  Speaker 2: body into relationship with the Spirit of God, the temple
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  Speaker 2: of God, the glory of God, and he makes all
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  Speaker 2: of life an issue of worship. Whether you eat or drink,
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  Speaker 2: whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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  Speaker 2: That's Chapter ten. So do everything as an act of worship.
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  Speaker 2: What we need to real lies is that the Bible
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  Speaker 2: introduces an aspect of morality which modern secular people do
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  Speaker 2: not recognize, namely the aspect of the sacred or the holy.
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  Speaker 2: Modern secular people focus on morality that simply says, if
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  Speaker 2: it doesn't hurt anybody, it isn't wrong. So it can't
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  Speaker 2: be wrong for two consenting adults to have sex outside marriage. Now,
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  Speaker 2: of course, it would be possible to argue against extramarital
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  Speaker 2: sex in the very terms of the world itself by saying, oh, yes,
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  Speaker 2: it does. It does harm people. For example, eighty seven
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  Speaker 2: percent of all abortions in America are performed on unmarried women. Therefore,
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  Speaker 2: sex outside marriage is responsible for the of eight hundred
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  Speaker 2: and seventy thousand babies a year. So there's plenty of
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  Speaker 2: hurt going around here connected with extra marital sex in
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  Speaker 2: spite of all the safe sex that you can talk
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  Speaker 2: about plenty. But that's not the way Paul is arguing here.
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  Speaker 2: Paul is introducing, along with the rest of the Bible,
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  Speaker 2: a dimension of morality that says something can be immoral
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  Speaker 2: whether it hurts anybody or not. This is the dimension
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  Speaker 2: suggested by the fact that our body is a temple.
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  Speaker 2: It's a temple of the Holy Spirit. The temple was
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  Speaker 2: a sacred place of worship. The issue in the temple
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  Speaker 2: wasn't whether you're killing people or not. It's whether you're pure.
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  Speaker 2: It's whether you're holy, it's whether you're reverent. So the
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  Speaker 2: aspect of morality that Paul introduces is not whether your
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  Speaker 2: behavior hurts someone, but whether it's impure, sacrilegious, defiled, profane, unholy, irreverent.
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  Speaker 2: Christians walk to the beat of a different drummer than
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  Speaker 2: the world. We don't just measure our behavior by worldly
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  Speaker 2: standards of right and row. We seek in everything we
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  Speaker 2: do to glorify God with our bodies, and we measure
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  Speaker 2: that worship by what God declares to be pure.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Paul brings the use of the body in
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  Speaker 1: eating and drinking and sex and every other way. He
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  Speaker 1: brings the body into relationship with the Spirit of God,
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  Speaker 1: the temple of God, the glory of God. And he
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  Speaker 1: makes all of life an issue of worship. Amen. And
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  Speaker 1: so while the world asks does anyone get hurt by
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  Speaker 1: this which in sexual sin? The answer is yes, millions
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  Speaker 1: of life's lost. Sobering, but we also ask what it
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  Speaker 1: is is sacred and the body is meant to be
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  Speaker 1: a holy temple, and that means sex is never morally
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  Speaker 1: neutral recreation. And so if sex is about worship, like
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  Speaker 1: how is sex made holy? Made holy? And that's what
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  Speaker 1: fet Timothy four Versus one to five teaches us. And
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  Speaker 1: for more on that text and for more on that idea,
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  Speaker 1: see the aspector John book on page one sixty eight
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  Speaker 1: for more. Thank you Bestor John, and thanks for joining
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  Speaker 1: us today. If you have a question to ask Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: find a link to email us and find our complete
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  Speaker 1: episode archive at the same place ask fastor John dot com.
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  Speaker 1: That's askpastor John dot com. Next time, the Bondage of
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  Speaker 1: Singleness done wrong. I'm Tony Ranky. See you on Thursday.