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1 Corinthians

About this book
Chapter 6

1 When any of you has a legal dispute with another, does he dare go to court before the unrighteous rather than before the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent to settle trivial suits?⁠ 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Why not ordinary matters! 4 So if you have ordinary lawsuits, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame! Is there no one among you wise enough to settle disputes between fellow Christians? 6 Instead, does a Christian sue a Christian, and do this before unbelievers? 7 The fact that you have lawsuits among yourselves demonstrates that you have already been defeated. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 But you yourselves wrong and cheat, and you do this to your brothers and sisters! 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 12 “All things are lawful for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “All things are lawful for me”—but I will not be controlled by anything.⁠ 13 “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both.” The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 Now God indeed raised the Lord and he will raise us by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”⁠ 17 But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”—but the immoral person sins against his own body.⁠ 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,⁠ whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Genesis 2:24 and 1 Corinthians 6:16

Septuagint · New Testament

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Summary

Genesis describes a man leaving his parents to unite with his wife and become one. Paul quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians to argue that joining with a prostitute likewise makes two people one flesh.

Passages

LXX Genesis 2:24

Septuagint
23 And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her husband. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cling to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 25 And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

1 Corinthians 6:16

New Testament
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him.
55–57 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Corinthians

References

“... To sleep with a prostitute was natural enough for a young man in Corinth. Jews admitted that a bachelor who remained chaste in a great city must be an outstandingly pious man. For Paul, to sleep with a prostitute involved nothing less than becoming ‘one flesh’ with her, as surely as Adam had become one flesh with Eve. It was a startling use of an image of physical joining usually applied only to husband and wife. ...”
Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 51–52.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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LXX Genesis 2:24 and 1 Corinthians 6:16

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