GRACE & TRUTH

Have you ever wondered if you can really relate to people in the Bible? We can think things like, "Our world is so much different today; is it really possible that what is written in the Bible is relatable to what I'm going through?"

Those are fair questions to ask, especially when we think about sexuality and the challenges with purity we face today. But when you take a deeper look at God's Word, you will find people who faced very similar challenges. In fact, Paul wrote two letters to the Church in Corinth -- and there is a lot that we can learn from that is very relatable to our culture today!

Paul's letters to the Church in Corinth (1 Corinthians & 2 Corinthians) are not just about dealing with sexuality, but there is quite a bit concerning sexuality in these letters because it was a big issue in the culture of Corinth at that time. Here is some insight:
- Corinth was an incredibly sexualized culture
- Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and pleasure, was the god they worshiped
- In Greece, Corinth was the main center of the worship of this goddess of sexuality
- Temple prostitution was commonplace in this pagan religion
- Sexual perversion was a part of their culture

How does Paul handle all of this? He doesn’t avoid the issues. He talks about them directly, with God’s love for the people. But he challenged them with the Truth of God’s Word. He calls believers to live to a very different standard than the culture. With the culture being completely entangled in sexual sin, Paul brings the radical truth from God’s Word about sexuality!

In short, he looked at the culture that was heading down the wrong path regarding sexuality and offered God's GRACE & God's TRUTH.

We're going to look more specifically at some of what Paul wrote in a few different chapters, but this is a key verse in this devotional that we will look at.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT)
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So, you must honor God with your body.