Nkem was fifteen when the visiting speaker came to the girls’ purity rally in her school hall in Enugu. It was hot, the ceiling fans turned slowly, and two hundred girls in green pinafores sat on wooden benches waiting for the talk to end so they could go to lunch.
The speaker held up a red rose. It was beautiful, fresh, with every petal intact. “This is you,” she said, “on the day you were born.” Then she passed it to the first girl on the front bench and asked her to pull off one petal. The girl giggled and did it. The rose went down the row, then to the next row, and the next. Each girl pulled off a petal. By the time it reached Nkem’s bench, there were only a few left. By the time it returned to the front, it was a bare green stem with a few torn leaves.
The speaker held it up. “This,” she said, “is what a girl looks like after she has given herself away to many boys. Who would want this?” There was nervous laughter. Some girls shook their heads. Somebody at the back called out, “Nobody!”
Nkem remembered the talk mostly because of the girl sitting next to her. Bunmi was her closest friend, a bright, funny girl who sang alto in the school choir. As the bare stem was held up, Nkem noticed that Bunmi was crying, silently, with her face turned towards the wall. When Nkem asked her afterwards what was wrong, Bunmi said she had a headache.
It was eleven years later, at Bunmi’s kitchen table in Lagos, that Nkem learned the truth. When Bunmi was ten, an older relative staying with the family had abused her over several months. She had never told anyone. And on that hot afternoon in the school hall, as the stem was held up, she had heard a verdict pronounced over her life. That is you. Nobody would want you.
Nkem is thirty-four now, married, with two children, and she leads the teenage girls’ fellowship at her church. Last month, preparing for a session on sexual purity, she was handed a red rose by a well-meaning colleague. “For your object lesson,” the colleague said.
PunchlineNkem looked at the rose for a long time. Then she put it in a vase on her desk and started again.
Why the body matters
When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about sexual conduct, he was writing to people who lived in one of the most sexually permissive cities in the Roman world. Some of the believers had brought their old assumptions with them into the church. They had slogans that sounded spiritual, and Paul quotes them:
All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
“All things are lawful unto me.” This was probably a slogan the Corinthians had taken from Paul’s own teaching on grace and twisted. Paul does not deny that believers are free. But he adds two qualifications. Not everything is “expedient,” that is, helpful or beneficial. And “I will not be brought under the power of any.” Freedom that leads you into slavery has defeated its own purpose.
“Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats.” The Corinthians seem to have argued that sex was like eating: a bodily appetite, morally neutral, with nothing to do with the spirit. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. Sex is for the body and the body is for sex. Why should God care?
Paul’s answer is astonishing. “Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” God cares about your body. He is not interested only in your soul while being indifferent to what you do with your physical self. “And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.” The body has a future. The same God who raised Jesus physically from the dead will raise our bodies. What you do with your body matters because your body is going somewhere.
This is a high view of the body. Some religious traditions have treated the physical body as a prison for the soul, something low and shameful. Christianity has never taught that. God made the body and called it good. The Son of God took a human body. He rose in a body. And He will raise ours. Sexual purity, rightly understood, is a way of honouring the body.
Members of Christ
Then Paul says something that would have startled his readers. “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” The believer’s body is part of Christ’s body. It belongs to Him, really and concretely.
So Paul asks, “shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.” In Corinth, prostitution was common and often connected to pagan temple worship. Some believers apparently saw no problem with continuing their visits. Paul says that a believer who does this is joining Christ’s own members to a prostitute.
He grounds this in the creation account. “For two, saith he, shall be one flesh.” Sexual union is not a casual physical act. God designed it to unite two people. It creates a bond, whether or not the people involved intend it to. That is why Paul says, “he which is joined to an harlot is one body.” The act carries a meaning that cannot be stripped from it by calling it casual.
“But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” The believer has been united with Christ at the deepest level. That union gives sexual conduct its moral weight. Sex is significant, far from dirty, and the person who belongs to Christ is not free to give that significance away carelessly.
Flee, and glorify God
Paul’s instruction is short and practical:
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 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? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
“Flee fornication.” The word means to run away, to take flight. Some temptations can be resisted standing still. Sexual temptation is usually not one of them. When Potiphar’s wife grabbed Joseph by his garment, “he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out” (Genesis 39:12). Joseph did not stay to argue or to prove his strength. He ran. Wisdom in this area often looks like distance: not being alone in certain places, ending certain conversations, deleting certain apps, refusing certain invitations.
“He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” Paul sees something unique about sexual sin. It involves the body in a deeply personal way. It touches the person’s own self.
“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?” In Corinth there were temples to many gods. Paul tells the believers that their own bodies are temples, dwelling places for the Spirit of God. Wherever you take your body, you take the Holy Spirit.
“And ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price.” Here is the heart of the matter. You belong to Christ. He purchased you with His own blood. Your body is His.
“Therefore glorify God in your body.” Notice that the final word is positive. Paul could have ended with a prohibition. Instead he ends with worship: “therefore glorify God.” Sexual purity aims higher than the avoidance of wrong. Its goal is a body used in ways that honour the One who bought it.
Your body is not a stem that has lost its petals or a prize to be guarded until it is spent. It is a temple of the Holy Ghost, bought with the blood of Christ, and it is for the Lord.
Honour, and the person beside you
Paul gives another key teaching on this subject to the believers in Thessalonica:
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.
“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” Many believers spend years asking what God’s will is for their lives. Paul says here that part of it is not hidden at all. God’s will is your sanctification, your growth in holiness. And one specific expression of that is “that ye should abstain from fornication.”
Notice that Paul places this instruction inside a relationship. Earlier in the same chapter he urges the Thessalonians to walk “to please God” (1 Thessalonians 4:1). Purity is not presented as a test to pass in order to be accepted. It is the shape that love for God takes in the area of our bodies. The believers in Thessalonica were young in the faith, many of them converted from pagan backgrounds where sexual freedom was assumed. Paul never shames them for where they came from. He teaches them, patiently and plainly, what belonging to God now means.
“That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour.” Interpreters differ on whether vessel here means one’s own body or one’s wife. Either way, the point is self-control exercised with honour. The believer learns to govern his own desires instead of being governed by them.
“Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.” Concupiscence means strong, grasping desire. Paul is describing an approach to sex that is driven by appetite and nothing else, the kind that treats another person as a means of satisfaction.
Then comes a verse that many readers pass over quickly, but which is central: “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter.” Sexual sin always wrongs another person. To “go beyond” is to overstep a boundary. To “defraud” is to take what does not belong to you. Sexual immorality is a kind of theft. It takes from someone what was not freely and rightly given, whether from the person directly, from their future spouse, or from their family.
Nugget“Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such.” God takes the side of the person who has been wronged. He is not indifferent to the injury.
“He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God.” To treat this teaching as mere human opinion is to reject God Himself, “who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.” The Spirit who lives in us is holy, and He makes holiness possible.
Consent, power and exploitation
That phrase about defrauding your brother opens up something the church has not always spoken about clearly. Sexual conduct concerns persons, and persons must be honoured. Where one person uses power, pressure, deception or force to take what the other has not freely given, a grave wrong has been done.
Scripture is honest about this. When King David saw Bathsheba bathing, he “sent messengers, and took her” (2 Samuel 11:4). He was the king. She was the wife of a soldier at the front. Whatever she felt, she was hardly in a position to refuse. When Nathan the prophet later confronted David, his parable was about a rich man who took a poor man’s only lamb. The focus was on the abuse of power and the injury to the one who had no defence.
The story of Amnon and Tamar is even plainer. Tamar pleaded with her half-brother, “Nay, my brother, do not force me” (2 Samuel 13:12). The text says that Amnon “would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her” (2 Samuel 13:14). The Bible does not describe this as an act of impurity on Tamar’s part. It names it as violence done to her.
This matters in our own setting. There are lecturers who demand sexual favours in exchange for marks. There are employers who make advancement depend on compliance. There are wealthy older men who give gifts to young girls and then claim that the girls owe them something. There are men who pressure girlfriends with threats of leaving, or with the claim that “if you love me, you will.” There are people who share intimate images without permission. In every case, the line of honour has been crossed, and the person doing it bears the guilt.
Marriage does not cancel this principle. Paul writes that “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife” (1 Corinthians 7:4). Notice that the belonging runs both ways. It is mutual, and it is the language of self-giving love, never of seizing. A husband or wife who uses force or threats has abandoned the love that Scripture describes. Marriage is no shelter for abuse, and no believer should endure violence in the name of submission or covenant.
Pornography belongs in this discussion too. Much of it involves real people who have been exploited, trafficked or coerced. Some of it involves children. Consuming it is never a private act without victims. It participates in a system that dishonours persons made in God’s image.
Abuse is not impurity
Here I must speak directly to anyone who has been sexually abused.
What was done to you was not your sin. It was sin committed against you. You did not lose your purity through what someone else forced upon you. The shame belongs to the person who wronged you, not to you.
Tamar asked a heartbreaking question as she pleaded with Amnon: “whither shall I cause my shame to go?” (2 Samuel 13:13). After the assault, she tore her robe and put ashes on her head and “went on crying.” Her brother Absalom told her to “hold now thy peace” and not to take it to heart, and “So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom’s house” (2 Samuel 13:20). Her family’s response was silence. That silence compounded the injury. Many survivors in our churches have received the same response: be quiet, do not shame the family, he is a respected man, forgive and move on.
That is not the way of Christ. If you have been abused, please speak to someone you trust. If you are in danger, seek safety. If a crime has been committed, it should be reported to the appropriate authorities, and a church that hears of child abuse must never handle it quietly by itself. Qualified counsellors who understand trauma can help you heal in ways that a single conversation cannot.
Churches carry a particular responsibility here. A congregation that teaches purity must also be a place where children are protected and survivors are believed. That means clear safeguarding policies, more than one adult present with children and teenagers, careful checks on those who work with young people, and a settled rule that any report of abuse is taken seriously and passed to the proper authorities. It also means teaching children, in age-appropriate words, that their bodies belong to them and to God, that no one has the right to touch them in secret, and that they will never be in trouble for telling. Jesus reserved some of His sternest words for those who cause little ones to stumble: “it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). A church that covers abuse to protect its reputation has forgotten whose reputation matters.
And hear this word from God:
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
He heals. He binds up wounds. He does not look at you as a stripped stem. The prophet speaks of God giving “beauty for ashes” (Isaiah 61:3), and the ashes in Tamar’s story were not of her own making. God sees what was done to you, and He is the avenger of all such wrongs. You are His, and you are whole in His sight.
Marriage held in honour
The letter to the Hebrews gives a short sentence that holds together both the goodness of sex and the seriousness of misusing it:
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
“Marriage is honourable in all.” Marriage is to be held in honour by everyone, married and single alike. It is God’s design, and sex within it is a gift. “And the bed undefiled.” Within the covenant of marriage, sexual intimacy is pure, and Scripture speaks about it with joy rather than reluctance. “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth” (Proverbs 5:18). Married believers should not carry into their marriage the idea that sex is somehow shameful. It is a gift to be enjoyed with gladness and gratitude.
“But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” The same verse that honours marriage warns those who dishonour it. Adultery breaks a covenant. It wounds a spouse, children, families and churches.
For married believers, faithfulness is guarded in small decisions. Jesus spoke of the heart:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Adultery begins long before the act. It begins in the look that lingers, the private messages that grow more personal, the conversations with a colleague that you would not want your spouse to read. Job said, “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” (Job 31:1). Faithful married believers make that covenant too. They are open with one another about their phones. They do not allow emotional intimacy to grow with someone else. They invest in their own marriage, keeping friendship and delight alive.
For single believers, this teaching is no cage, and singleness is no waiting room or lesser state. Jesus was single. Paul was single, and he called his singleness a gift (1 Corinthians 7:7). Single believers have full dignity and full belonging in the body of Christ. Purity for a single believer means honouring their own body and the bodies of others, refusing to use anyone, and keeping sexual intimacy for the covenant of marriage. It also means wisdom: boundaries in dating relationships, honesty with trusted friends, and choosing not to place yourself in situations where your resolve will be tested beyond what is wise. The Song of Solomon repeats a refrain: “that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please” (Song of Solomon 8:4). There is a time for desire to be awakened. Wisdom does not rush it.
When you have fallen short
PunchlineSome reading this will feel the weight of past choices. You have not kept yourself pure. You may still be struggling now.
Paul wrote to the same Corinthian church after listing many kinds of sin, including sexual sin, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Washed. Sanctified. Justified. Your past is not your identity. Shame does not get to tell you who you are.
When a woman caught in adultery was dragged before Jesus, He dismissed her accusers and said to her, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). No condemnation came first. Then the call to a new way of living. Jesus gave her both, in that order.
If you are struggling now, especially with pornography or a pattern you cannot break, bring it into the light. Tell a trusted believer. Get practical help. Some patterns require the support of a counsellor, and seeking that is wise, not shameful. God’s grace does not leave you where you are, and it does not throw you away either.
Nkem’s session with the teenage girls began without any rose.
She told them that their bodies were good, made by God and loved by Him. She read 1 Corinthians 6 and explained that their bodies were temples of the Holy Ghost, bought with the blood of Christ. She told them that God’s will for them was holiness and honour, and that no one, whether a boyfriend, a lecturer, a boss or a relative, had any right to take from them what they had not freely given. She told them that if anyone had ever done that, it was not their sin, and they should tell someone. She gave them the names of two women in the church they could speak to in confidence.
Then she held up the rose from her desk. It was a week old now, some petals beginning to fall. “Some of you were taught, like I was, that you are like this rose,” she said. “That every mistake or every wound takes something away, until there is nothing left. That is not the gospel. You are not a flower that loses its petals. You are a temple. And when a temple is damaged, God does not abandon it. He restores it. He lives in it.”
Three girls stayed behind afterwards to talk to the women she had named.
That evening, Nkem called Bunmi. “I did the purity talk today,” she said. “No rose lesson.” Bunmi was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Thank you. If someone had told me that when I was fifteen, I would not have carried it alone for so long.”
Bunmi now volunteers with a Christian organisation that supports survivors of abuse. She sings alto in her church choir. She is no stem without petals. She is a woman who belongs to Christ, washed, honoured and whole.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What messages did you receive about sex and purity while growing up? Which of them were true to Scripture, and which were shaped by shame?
- How does it change your view of your body to know that it is “for the Lord” and that God will raise it up?
- Where in your own context do you see sexual pressure, exploitation or abuse of power? How might the church speak and act more clearly about it?
- If you are married, what small decisions guard your faithfulness? If you are single, what would it look like to honour your body and others’ with wisdom and dignity?
- Is there someone in your life who needs to hear that what was done to them was not their impurity?
This Week
Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 aloud this week, slowly, three times. Each time, notice one phrase about what your body means to God, and thank Him for it. Then identify one practical boundary that would help you honour your body and others more wisely (in your phone use, your relationships or your private time) and put it in place. If you carry the wound of abuse, consider speaking this week with a trusted, qualified person who can help you begin to heal.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You that my body belongs to You, bought with Your precious blood. Thank You that it is a temple of Your Holy Spirit and that You will raise it up. Teach me to honour my body and the bodies of others. Keep me from using anyone, and give me courage to flee what dishonours You. Where I have fallen short, I receive Your washing and Your call to go and sin no more. Where I have been wronged, heal my broken heart and bind up my wounds, and let no shame that was placed on me define who I am. Make me a person of honour, for Your glory. In Your name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.