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"You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God Himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred --- and you, remember, are the temple...
"Don't
you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don't
care about God will not be joining in His kingdom. Those who use and
abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and
everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom. A number
of you know from experience what I'm talking about, for not so long ago
you were on that list. Since then, you've been cleaned up and given a
fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in
us, the Spirit.
"Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.
"Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.
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"You know the old saying, 'First you eat to live, then you live to eat'? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that's no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor Him with your body!
"God
honored the Master's body by raising it from the grave. He'll treat
yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.
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"There's
more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as
physical fact. As written in Scripture, 'The two become one.' Since we
want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the
kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely
than ever --- the kind of sex that can never 'become one.' There is a
sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin
we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for 'becoming one' with another. Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you realize that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.
"Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, is it a good thing to have sexual relations?
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"Certainly --- but only within a certain context. It's good for a man to have
a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong,
but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced
and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality --- the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to 'stand up for your rights.' Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it, and if it's for the purposes of prayer and fasting --- but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it. I’m not, understand, commanding these periods of abstinence --- only providing my best counsel if you should choose them.
"Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me --- a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.
"I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. But if they can’t manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single. And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master’s command, not mine. If a wife should leave her husband, she must either remain single or else come back and make things right with him. And a husband has no right to get rid of his wife."
"Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me --- a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.
"I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. But if they can’t manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single. And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master’s command, not mine. If a wife should leave her husband, she must either remain single or else come back and make things right with him. And a husband has no right to get rid of his wife."
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