The context is different from the usual church problems---members were visiting prostitutes, eating meat offered to idols, and so on. But in reworking the Jewish traditions about the Temple for his Gentile Christian church, Paul was helping the Corinthians realize they were disrespecting their bodies and therefore God.
How do you disrespect God by mistreating your body? Unlike eastern religious traditions, the Christian teaching about the Spirit is different from an idea of an inherent divine nature (like the doctrine of Brahman-Atman in Hinduism). Rather, the Spirit (in contrast to the soul) is a divine gift, a presence within us that God sends. To say that we are “temples” harkens back to the temples of Israel, like Solomon’s splendid temple, where the glory of God resided in a special way. When the glory departed because of the nation’s sinfulness, the results were catastrophic (Ezekiel 8-10). Ezekiel, though, envisioned an everlasting return of God’s Spirit (Ez. 37:26-27). Christians interpreted this passage as the giving of the Spirit to believers following Pentecost (Acts 2). So when Paul says the Spirit of God dwells in our bodies (that is, within our very selves), he’s talking not about a general spirituality, nor about the soul, but a very powerful and significant presence of God, now dwelling within us.
We can take great comfort in Paul’s teaching here: God has chosen us as sacred places in which the Spirit resides. “God don’t make no junk,” as the saying goes, and each of us are precious to God.
In his teaching here, Paul alludes to slavery and the purchase of slaves for a master. That image is hard for us to accept today, given the horrible history of American slavery. But we can think of it in a related way: when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, God selected them as his own people and rescued them from slavery. In Christ, God has chosen us as his people as he chose the Israelites in Moses’ time.
There is also a familial image behind Paul’s words. People know us as individuals but also know us in connection to our commitments and relationships. My wife is president of a midwestern university. We get joking questions if my title is “first man” or “first husband.” Although my role as an adjunct instructor at the university is much more modest, I represent the university, too, as a teacher and as the president’s spouse. Although I have my own identity, it is closely connected to my identity with my family, my work place, as well as a Christian writer and generally as a Christian. Many of us have the same kind of set of mutual connections and mutual responsibilities. That's not to say we'll never fail or disappoint. Likewise, we still have to affirm but still, we’re conscious of a sense of belonging to God and to one another, interconnected by the work of the Spirit.
I think of several questions about Paul's teaching. When we affirm ourselves as God's temple, how are we true to this saying today (without simplistically making physical fitness, wonderful as it is, a kind of religious obligation)? How do we affirm our individuality in connection to our commitments and mutual responsibilities (setting priorities, avoiding the trap of "groupthink," and so on)? How do we glorify God (helping others love and honor God, too) in our personal identities and our social contacts and commitments? How will we seek the Spirit's guidance during the upcoming Lenten season?
(These thoughts are an "outtake" from an earlier project.)
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