{"id":989,"date":"2006-02-25T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2006-02-25T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/february-qyour-body-the-temple-of-the-holy-spiritq\/"},"modified":"2014-02-02T02:29:10","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T02:29:10","slug":"february-qyour-body-the-temple-of-the-holy-spiritq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/february-qyour-body-the-temple-of-the-holy-spiritq\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Body: the temple of the Holy Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

What!\u00a0 Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19).\u00a0 The Apostle\u2019s question is as relevant today as ever, perhaps more so.\u00a0 Most of us can remember seeing pictures of the \u201cheathen\u201d in foreign lands painting and piercing their bodies, stretching their skin over some bone or arrow, coloring their hair and dancing around a fire or a carved idol.\u00a0 One not-so-old Bible Encyclopedia comments on the prohibition to cut or disfigure the body (Lev. 19:18) as a \u201creference to the custom of tattooing common among savage tribes, and in vogue among both men and women of the lower orders in Arabia, Egypt, and many other lands.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup> It seems that today these comments would have to be amended to include not only \u201ccivilized\u201d countries but much of the Christian church as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would have been a shocking and offensive practice among believers just a few years ago, now is becoming accepted for laymen and clergy alike.\u00a0 Tattoos may be anywhere and of anything; piercings are displayed inside and outside almost any body part; \u201cbody art\u201d of various kinds is more common than billboards along the highways; hair is colored, cubed or meticulously disheveled; and those uncomely parts upon which we used to bestow more abundant honor (1 Cor. 12:23) are now uncovered with lack of shame and even with boldness.\u00a0 The discussion is no longer how to reach those poor souls doing these things because they don\u2019t know the Lord, but how to deal with this within the church and among believers.<\/p>\n

Though these things are obviously becoming accepted practices, I believe they are dishonoring to the body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit; are opening harmful doors to our children and young people; and are doing far more harm than good in presenting the gospel to a lost world.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The body as a billboard<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In the world, the marking and piercing of the body is seen as art and artistic expression as well as a place for coded messages.\u00a0 On one web site a \u201cbody artist\u201d says, \u201cIn doing so, we aim to shatter all stigmas associated with the body modification culture by proving that tatted and pierced people are, for the most part, just as \u2018normal\u2019 as the Baby Boomers who presume to judge us.\u00a0 But then again, if piercings were totally acceptable by society, we wouldn\u2019t have any more curious twenty-something year old customers taking their first step into the \u2018wild\u2019 side.\u201d\u00a0 One young person wrote, \u201cWell, I for one feel that scarification is a wonderful expression of who you are.\u00a0 I have a scarification, it is a wolf on my back.\u00a0 I feel that this expressed my true self, the wolf is my totem, my spiritual guide.\u00a0 I also have tattoos on my back and arm.\u00a0 Each piece that is put on my body represents some part of my spirit, my soul and who I am.\u201d\u00a0 Another online writer says, \u201cThere are many reasons in which people obtain piercings and tattoos.\u00a0 Those who modify, manipulate and mutilate their bodies do so for many reasons.\u00a0 Some say it\u2019s simply exciting and pleasurable, or part of the latest fad.\u00a0 Others place it in the context of art, ritual or self-expression, they say it\u2019s an act with cultural and social significance.\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n

In a Better Homes & Gardens article titled, \u201c8 Signs the Kids are Fine,\u201d the fifth sign is \u201cShe doesn\u2019t have any tattoos.\u201d\u00a0 The paragraph with a quote from Dr. Timothy Roberts the University of Rochester\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital reads, \u201cStudies of more than 6,000 junior and high school students found that those with tattoos and body piercings (not earrings) were more likely to smoke cigarettes or marijuana, go on drinking binges, have premarital sex, get into fights, join gangs, skip school, and get poor grades.\u00a0 \u2018If a child asks for a tattoo, the parent should recognize that as an opportunity to talk.\u2019\u201d3<\/sup> I recall knowing a teenage boy, the son of a Christian friend, on drug charges, who stood before the judge in a court room with his longish hair, tattoos, chains and black clothes.\u00a0 When the boy said he didn\u2019t know how he got into such trouble, the judge reprimanded him sternly about the way he appeared and said, \u201cYou are a walking advertisement for every drug dealer in town.\u201d\u00a0 The body has become the billboard for a person\u2019s coded message, the sermon in picture of his world view.\u00a0 The atheist Friederic Nietzsche has Zarathustra saying, \u201cBut the awakened and knowing say:\u00a0 Body am I entirely, and nothing else; and the soul is only a word for something about the body.\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n

In contrast, David Warren wrote about how God values the body enough to speak often of how it is clothed:<\/p>\n

\n

God speaks about matters that matter; He does not waste our time with peripheral details.\u00a0 You may be interested to know that God refers to clothing more than 530 times in Scripture, using 12 different Hebrew terms in the Old Testament and 6 different Greek terms in the New Testament.\u00a0 He has something to say about our clothing, and anything He talks about should be of immediate interest to us.\u00a0 It is kind of Him to speak to us about something that is such an integral part of life, isn’t it?5<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

The Old Testament admonitions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One would expect to find God\u2019s attitude toward these things in the Law, the only national constitution God ever wrote.\u00a0 He told Israel, Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD (Lev. 19:28).\u00a0 God commanded Jeremiah not to intermingle in the lives of the heathen people where he had been carried, and when they died he was not to follow their religious ceremonies:\u00a0 Neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them (Jer. 16:6).\u00a0 The cuttings in the flesh were done by the heathen for the souls of the dead.\u00a0 God\u2019s people were not to copy these cultural mores.\u00a0 God\u2019s attitude toward these things has never changed though He has changed the way He deals with them.\u00a0 We think because God doesn\u2019t strike offenders dead immediately, He doesn\u2019t care as much about it as He used to.\u00a0 The New Testament adds an even greater responsibility to these things because now the believer\u2019s body is the actual abode of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Many cling to an interpretation of Gen. 24:22 which proposes that Abraham\u2019s servant gave Rebekah a nose ring.\u00a0 But to call the jewel a \u201cnose ring\u201d is an opinion and not a translation, nor does it seem consistent with the text or context.\u00a0 Taking the KJV as a starting point, we find that the man took a golden (zahab-\u201cgold\u201d) earring (nezem-\u201cring\u201d) of a half-shekel weight (Gen. 24:22).\u00a0 The NKJV translates the word nezem \u201cnose ring\u201d but as an interpretation not a translation seeing that the word for \u201cnose\u201d is not in this verse.\u00a0 The NASB translates it \u201cgold ring,\u201d as does the ASV, since both the word \u201cgold\u201d and \u201cring\u201d are in this verse, while the NIV translates it \u201ca gold nose ring,\u201d combining translation and interpretation.\u00a0 To see the difference we only have to go forward to Gen. 35:4 where we have and all their earrings (nezem-\u201cring\u201d) which were in their ears (ozen-\u201cear\u201d).\u00a0 We know that ozen is the ear, not the nose as any dictionary or concordance will show.\u00a0 In that verse, the ring was obviously in the ear.\u00a0 The reason given why the simple word for \u201cring\u201d (nezem) is sometimes translated \u201cnose ring\u201d by some is because it is believed that many non-Jewish tribes wore rings in their nose.\u00a0 This may or may not be the case but it makes \u201cnose ring\u201d an interpretation, not a translation.<\/p>\n

The Hebrew word for \u201cnose\u201d is aph and appears in the context of the \u201cring\u201d (nezem) in a few related passages.\u00a0 In fact, in the 47th<\/sup> verse of this chapter of Genesis (24) we read and I put the earring (nezem-\u201cring\u201d) upon her face (aph-\u201cnose\u201d).\u00a0 Now that may seem to mean \u201cin\u201d her nose, but it does not necessarily.\u00a0 It actually says \u201cupon\u201d (\u2018al) the nose.\u00a0 This is an important distinction and some commentators (and parallel verses) understand this to picture a different thing.\u00a0 John Gill, for example, says, \u201cThis was a jewel that hung from the forehead upon a lace of riband between the eyes down upon the nose.\u201d6<\/sup> The idea would be that the jewell hung on a strand of some kind around the head but hung low over the face to be \u201cupon the nose\u201d (my Bible footnotes Gen. 24:47 with, a jewel for the forehead).\u00a0 This picture may be supported by contrasting two prophetic verses, one positive and one negative.\u00a0 Ezekiel 16:12 is the great chapter where God is describing how He found and rescued Israel in her infancy.\u00a0 In that graphic description He says, and I put a jewel (nezem-\u201cring\u201d) on (\u2018al-\u201cupon\u201d) thy forehead (aph-\u201cnose\u201d).\u00a0 The ring is said to be \u201cupon\u201d the nose as we have seen.\u00a0 A negative contrast to this is in Isaiah 3:18-21 where we see God\u2019s wrath poured out in the Day of the Lord.\u00a0 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings (lit. \u201camulets\u201d), the rings (nezem-\u201cring\u201d), and the nose jewels (\u201crings of the nose\u201d).\u00a0 Here we have the word \u201cnose\u201d with the word \u201cring\u201d which both appear in this verse.\u00a0 But what is interesting is that these rings are actually \u201cof the nose\u201d which is closer to meaning \u201cin the nose\u201d whereas in Genesis 24:47 the ring was \u201cupon\u201d the nose or face, perhaps, as we have seen, worn as a head-band.<\/p>\n

Now one last note about Rebekah\u2019s gold ring needs to be made.\u00a0 Just because we have a true record of what was given to her and what she wore (even if it were a nose ring), this doesn\u2019t mean it should become a model for us.\u00a0 If the society we live in has given it a coded connotation, it should be discarded.\u00a0 I have to agree with the following rather long statement by John Calvin,<\/p>\n

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But it may be asked, whether God approves ornaments of this kind, which pertain not so much to the neatness as to pomp?\u00a0 I answer, that the things related to Scripture are not always proper to be imitated.\u00a0 Whatever the Lord commands in general terms is to be accounted as an inflexible rule of conduct; but to rely on particular examples is not only dangerous, but even foolish and absurd.\u00a0 Now we know how highly displeasing to God is not only pomp and ambition in adorning the body, but all kind of luxury.\u00a0 In order to free the heart from inward cupidity, he condemns that immoderate and superfluous splendour, which contains within itself many allurements to vice.\u00a0 Where, indeed, is pure sincerity of heart found under splendid ornaments?\u00a0 Certainly all acknowledge this virtue to be rare.\u00a0 It is not, however, for us expressly to forbid every kind of ornament; yet because whatever exceeds the frugal use of such things is tarnished with some degree of vanity; and more especially, because the cupidity of women is, on this point, insatiable; not only must moderation, but even abstinence, be cultivated as far as possible. . . . The women who desire to shine in gold, seek in Rebekah a pretext for their corruption.7<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

The New Testament Admonitions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

1 Peter 3:3-4.\u00a0<\/strong> Peter recalls the Old Testament saints who honored God with their outward appearance and admonishes us all (but specifically wives) to follow their example.\u00a0 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.\u00a0 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands.<\/p>\n

1 Timothy 2:9-10.\u00a0<\/strong> Paul sounds much like Peter in addressing specific excesses in dress and jewelry.\u00a0 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamedfacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.\u00a0 If today we cannot seem to apply these admonitions to avoid worldliness without the \u201ceither or\u201d mentality (i.e. either we eliminate every tiny piece or we allow everything that can be dreamed up) then let us err on the side of the godly women of old who received the blessings of God because of their inward beauty not any outward advertisement.<\/p>\n

Romans 6:13.<\/strong>\u00a0 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourslves unto God. . . and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.\u00a0 Paul\u2019s word for \u201cinstruments\u201d in this verse means \u201cweapons\u201d (hopla).\u00a0 Our bodies become weapons in the fight for righteousness!\u00a0 The believer\u2019s body can be a weapon on either side depending on how he\/she yields it.\u00a0 No wonder we will be judged at the Bema Seat for things done in the body (2 Cor. 5:10).<\/p>\n

1 Corinthians 3:16-17.<\/strong>\u00a0 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?\u00a0 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.\u00a0 Here our translators show their love of variety in vocabulary because, in verse 17, \u201cdefile\u201d and \u201cdestroy\u201d are the exact same Greek word (to \u201cdestroy\u201d, \u201cdefile\u201d or \u201ccorrupt\u201d).\u00a0 When the believer sets about to \u201cdestroy\u201d the body in which the Holy Spirit dwells, God sets about to destroy that body.\u00a0 Vine calls it \u201cGod\u2019s retributive destruction of the offender who is guilty of this sin.\u201d8<\/sup> We are seeing this corrupting influence dragging down the lives of many believers in our own churches.<\/p>\n

1 Corinthians 6:15.\u00a0<\/strong> Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?\u00a0 Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot?\u00a0 God forbid.\u00a0 Our Lord is jealous of the whole person.\u00a0 He intends to save all of us, not just our soul, by raising the body from the dead (vs. 14).\u00a0 If we will not carry unnecessary marks on our bodies with us into heaven, then they are out of place on this earth too.\u00a0\u00a0 He is possessive enough of our body that He is willing to share it with our earthly spouse but that is all.\u00a0 All else is fornication whether it be physical or spiritual (Jas. 4:4).<\/p>\n

Galatians 6:7-8.\u00a0<\/strong> Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.\u00a0 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.\u00a0 \u201cCorruption\u201d is the same word as \u201cdefile, destroy\u201d in 1 Cor. 3:17.\u00a0 We cannot sow into our flesh the elements of the world without reaping a corruption directed by God Himself!\u00a0 This is extremely serious when God tells us that such sowing to the flesh is mocking Him!\u00a0 It is thumbing our noses at God\u2019s very warnings about how we treat the body which He gave us to be used as His temple.<\/p>\n

Ephesians 2:2-3, 11; 1 Peter 4:3.\u00a0<\/strong> The phrase that is of interest in these verses (and many others like them) is \u201cin time past.\u201d\u00a0 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world. . . Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of the flesh . . . Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh.\u00a0 Peter says, For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walkeded in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.\u00a0 The time when we lived for and by our flesh is history to the believer!\u00a0 We have left the world\u2019s indicators behind, even though (Peter writes in the next verse) unbelievers may speak evil of you, it is only because the old things have passed away and they like the old better than the new.<\/p>\n

Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5.\u00a0<\/strong> If ye live after the flesh ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.\u00a0 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.\u00a0 \u201cMortification\u201d is one of those doctrines that is lost on our generation.\u00a0 Like a couch potato who tries to get up and run a ten-mile marathon, the worldly Christian tries to mortify the fleshly desires of his body and fails.\u00a0 The church today is much more interested in making theologies to indulge the flesh and pacify immature saints than it is to subject itself to rigorous spiritual training.\u00a0 It is always easier in Rome to do as the Romans do (otherwise they may not like us and that would hurt our precious self-esteem).\u00a0 Paul reminds us that For thy sake we are killed all the day long (Rom. 8:36) and that he was always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus; and that he was always delivered unto death for Jesus\u2019 sake (2 Cor. 4:10-11).\u00a0 But we cannot seem to reserve even the skin of our teeth for Him.<\/p>\n

Other Admonitions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The dignity of causality.\u00a0<\/strong> I have read this phrase in older Christian writers that God has given us two dignified means by which we may change things.\u00a0 One is by doing things, and the other is by prayer.\u00a0 Prayer is the greater and yet the lesser used of the two.\u00a0 We usually pray as though little depended on God and work as though it all depends on us.\u00a0 But doing things with our body is also a dignity God has given us.\u00a0 We have this \u201cspace\u201d that we live in to offer to God as a stewardship because it is the means by which we can do things.\u00a0 It is the \u201cspace\u201d for which we will be held accountable at the Bema Seat.\u00a0 John says there will be shame before Him some day rather than confidence (1 John 2:28-29) because we have not used our bodies as effective instruments of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Godliness for evangelism.\u00a0 <\/strong> When Paul admonished Timothy to exercise himself to godliness more than to physical exercise (1 Tim. 4:7-8), it was for the express purpose of evangelism:\u00a0 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.\u00a0 It has pleased God to draw the lost to Christ by His children exercising themselves in godliness and not in physical exercises.\u00a0 We have fallen into the unbiblical notion that we can reach the world better by avoiding godliness because lost people are turned off by it.\u00a0 We certainly have no right to criticize the questionable methodologies of past evangelists when we have no concern of our own for the holy things of God.\u00a0 Where did we hear that we can reach more sinners by offending the Holy Spirit?\u00a0 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.\u00a0 He that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit (1 Thes. 4:7-8).<\/p>\n

Threshold separation.\u00a0<\/strong> We ought to have learned by now that opening a door and crossing the threshold exposes us to everything that is in that room.\u00a0 When we cross certain thresholds of cultural and worldly practice, we are exposing ourselves and our loved ones to everything related to it.\u00a0 Social drinking will not stop there; lower rated movies will not stop there; another hole in the same ear will not stop there; slightly crude words will not stop there;\u00a0 a little aggressiveness in boys will not stop there; a little cleavage on girls will not stop there; a little tattoo on the arm will not stop there.\u00a0 Paul scolded the Thessalonian church for being busy-bodies because he knew it would not stop there.\u00a0 But ye, brethren, be not weary in well-doing.\u00a0 And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.\u00a0 Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother (2 Thes. 3:13-15).\u00a0 Whether bodily markings and piercings or any other culturally\/worldly initiation, when we cross that threshold we seldom go back or even slow down.<\/p>\n

Eschatological sensitivity.\u00a0<\/strong> The decline in preaching and belief about the coming Tribulation and the rise of the Anti-Christ has allowed the church to be less discerning about a one-world global culture.\u00a0 Though this subject has fallen prey to many excesses and fantastic interpretations of the prophetic details, we cannot just stop living in the light of this coming judgment of God.\u00a0 One of the details that we know is coming and that will have devastating global effects is the mark of the Beast.\u00a0 The Bible uses a few different words for things resembling a mark.\u00a0 Jesus is the image (icon) of the invisible God (Col. 1:14).\u00a0 This word means \u201crepresentation\u201d or \u201clikeness\u201d and is a fitting description of Christ\u2019s incarnation.\u00a0 Paul said, I bear in my body the marks (stigma) of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 6:17).\u00a0 These were, no doubt, the scars from his stoning in Lystra.\u00a0 This is the common word for a \u201cbrand\u201d or a burned \u201cmark.\u201d\u00a0 But the word used to describe the mark of the Beast is charagma which is an engraver\u2019s mark, a purposed scarification.\u00a0 Though it can be used in its simple meaning,9<\/sup> it is almost always used with a negative connotation in the New Testament.\u00a0 In Revelation, the 144,000 are said to have God\u2019s name \u201cwritten\u201d in their foreheads, but that is NOT this word.\u00a0 Only the Beast and False Prophet use this kind of a mark (charagma) to imitate as closely as possible what God does supernaturally.\u00a0 Paul used this word on Mars Hill to describe the pagan idolatry of the Athenians.\u00a0 We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven (charagma) by art (technes) and man\u2019s device (Acts 17:29).\u00a0 The Anti-Christ will use this method to inscribe his mark on the heads or hands of the whole world that worships him and Satan.\u00a0 Interestingly, the False Prophet somehow brings a technological reinforcement to this through the image (icon) he makes to the Beast.<\/p>\n

In all of our modern and cultural \u201csophistication\u201d the churches are indulging more and more into these things, and becoming less and less sensitive to their potential use for evil.\u00a0 We think we are so culturally relevant because we can read the face of the sky, but we are not discerning the signs of the times.\u00a0 Being culturally relevant is not simply to know how to get along in the world, it is knowing how to be God\u2019s steward of truth in the time of falsehood, knowing how to be lights in a dark world.\u00a0 How can we doubt that the world is being conditioned to receive the Anti-Christ and his one-world system with its vital key, the mark of the Beast.\u00a0 Is the Church of Jesus Christ helping this conditioning?\u00a0 Are we making it easier for the great enemy of Christ to deceive the rest of the world?\u00a0 Do we not care that Christ will cast into hell those who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name (Rev. 14:11)?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And So . . . .<\/h3>\n

We ought to make the best use of this body that we have been given by God, and use it in a discerning way in the time which we have.\u00a0 It is the only \u201cspace\u201d we have to carry out our stewardship.\u00a0 If we err, let us err on the side of wholesomeness and effectiveness for the truth\u2019s sake and the gospel\u2019s; let us err on the side of the fellowship of Christ\u2019s sufferings that we might know more about the power of His resurrection.<\/p>\n

When facing more severe hardships than ours, the eighteenth century writer Jean Baptiste Massillon wrote,<\/p>\n

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The children of Israel offered animals in sacrifice to the Lord, and Egypt worshipped them.\u00a0 Their situation was typical of ours.\u00a0 We form a people apart, in the midst of the world, because we ought to sacrifice to God those passions of the flesh which the world adores.\u00a0 As soon as we break the barrier which separates us from the world — as soon as we leave this happy land of Goshen and go to mingle among idolaters, their worship becomes ours.\u00a0 Separation from them constitutes all our safety and maintains a diversity of manners; by mixing, we form but one people with them and become like them.10<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

The believer\u2019s walk in the world has become difficult for our generation to discern.\u00a0 We\u2019re told that any physical separation from the world is unbiblical and is like the ostrich with his head in the sand.\u00a0 We forget that today\u2019s lack of separation is just that\u2014only today\u2019s.\u00a0 It has not been the church\u2019s testimony for these last two thousand years.\u00a0 The great work done for Christ by preachers and missionaries and many other godly saints, was not done in the worldly mode we are trying to use today.\u00a0 The great cloud of witnesses is crying to us to be faithful!\u00a0 They gave their bodies and their lives for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Surely we can do no less.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Notes:<\/address>\n
1. Dwight M. Pratt, \u201cMark, a stigma,\u201d The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939) 1986.<\/address>\n
2. These are taken from various sites by searching for Tattoo and Piercing.<\/address>\n
3. Better Homes & Gardens, July 2005.<\/address>\n
4. Friederic Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (New York:\u00a0 Penguin Books, 1978) 34.<\/address>\n
5. David Warren, \u201cClothing Communicates,\u201d The Baptist Bulletin, May 1999.<\/address>\n
6. John Gill, Dr. Gill\u2019s Commentary, vol. 1 (London:\u00a0 William Hill Collingridge, 1853) 132.<\/address>\n
7. John Calvin, Calvin\u2019s Commentaries, vol. second (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981) 22.<\/address>\n
8. W.E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revell, 1966) 242.<\/address>\n
9. This is used, for example, in Heb. 1:3, where Christ is said to be the express image of his person which shows the exactness of His divine image.<\/address>\n
10. Jean Baptiste Massillon, \u201cOn the Spirit of the Ministry,\u201d Orations from Homer to McKinley, vol. IV (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1902) 1713.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What!\u00a0 Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19).\u00a0 The Apostle\u2019s question is as relevant today as ever, perhaps more so.\u00a0 Most of us can remember seeing pictures of the \u201cheathen\u201d in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[167,163],"class_list":["post-989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-christian-living-cross-discipleship","tag-separation"],"yoast_head":"\nYour Body: the temple of the Holy Spirit - Aletheia Baptist Ministries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/february-qyour-body-the-temple-of-the-holy-spiritq\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Your Body: the temple of the Holy Spirit - Aletheia Baptist Ministries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What!\u00a0 Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own? 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