<p>6:13 <i>Food for the belly and the belly for food, but God shall bring to nothing both it and them</i>- Again this seems to be a quotation from the Corinthian philosophy: &quot;Food for the belly and the belly for food&quot;. Human behaviour was seen as simply fulfilling the quite legitimate needs of the body; if the body demanded sex or over eating or drinking, then so they reasoned it was legitimate and natural to permit this. But the case of the sexually immoral man who took his father's wife surely demonstrates for all time where this approach leads, when taken to its ultimate term. Again, the Corinthians were going wrong as many do today because they left the Spirit out of account, and acted as if there was no 'spiritual' aspect to life. The chasmic difference and tension between flesh and spirit is a major theme with Paul. The flesh with its passions is doomed to destruction, being 'brought to nothing' in human death and at the last day. </p><p><i>But the body is not for fornication</i>- If the Spirit of God has possessed us, then our whole being, our bodies included, are for Him. The Corinthians had been given this Spirit, as explained in chapter 1; but they denied its power, and were in practice not spiritual (3:1). Therefore it is not for us to justify the usage of even our bodies for ourselves. The idea of our bodies belonging not to us but to our Lord / Master is lifted directly from the language of slavery. A slave was bought, and therefore every part of him or her belonged to their master, including their very bodies. Given the prevalence of slaves amongst the early Christian population, this was both a liberating and challenging idea. And it is no less radical or those whose souls are effectively bought be employers, the minimum wage culture or oppressive social and family structures.</p><p><i>But for the Lord- </i>The message and demand of Christ in moral terms would have stood out starkly and attractively, despite all the first century objections to Christianity; and so it should be with us, living in identical circumstances. In the Graeco-Roman world, sexual immorality was just the done thing. The feeling was that the body is essentially evil, therefore what was done with the body wasn&rsquo;t that great a deal. The call of the Gospel was that the body is for the Lord- something totally unheard of. And Paul places sexual sins at the beginning of his list of works of the flesh in Gal. 5, labouring the point to the Corinthians that sin involving the body was in fact especially bad. This was radical stuff in a culture where prostitution and sexual immorality were seen as an almost necessary part of religion. Yet the Christian teaching of chastity was actually attractive to people precisely because of its radical difference. And yet we can be sure that this was also a barrier to the general mass of humanity at the time. This is just one of many examples where Christianity consciously broke through deeply held boundaries and worldviews. The self-consciousness of how the Gospel did this was bound to make it obnoxious to the majority.</p><p><i>And the Lord for the body- </i>It makes an interesting study to analyze the areas of Paul's writing where he makes most intense use of the title &quot;Lord&quot; for Jesus. One such passage is in 1 Cor. 6:13- 7:40, where Paul addresses issues relating to sexual self-control. Here the density of usage of the title &quot;Lord&quot; is higher than anywhere else in his writings. And he wasn't merely playing with words- the idea clearly is that the Lordship of Jesus is to have a gripping practical effect upon our lives.</p>