What penetrates you?

All things are lawful but not all things are beneficial. No one would arrest you for eating McDonalds every day, but as to whether it benefits your health is quite another thing. Just because there aren’t any legal consequences to your actions doesn’t mean it benefits the health of your soul! The latter half of 1 Corinthians 6:13 which says “now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord”, at first glance appears to have nothing to do with the preceding verse. But if you think about fornication in a quite blunt sense you begin to gain further insight into the passage. First, in relation to the preceding verse, yes, fornication isn’t illegal, unless of course if done in public in which case the law uses the euphemism “public indecency”. But why is the word “fornication” used here. Well I believe because essentially fornication means to give yourself over to another. To allow another to in a very real sense penetrate you. To allow another to enter you. In our perverse society it goes beyond just people. It can even mean to allow objects, to allow “things” to penetrate and to enter us. God essentially says in verse 13, don’t give your soul over to a person or a thing. Don’t give it over to money. Don’t give it over to power, influence, fame. Don’t allow these things to “enter” or to “penetrate you”. Yes it isn’t unlawful to seek after wealth and riches! It isn’t unlawful to live your life for a beloved. But is it beneficial? I submit to you that the only benefit to the human soul is in allowing God to penetrate you, in allowing God to enter you! “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it” says the Lord.  Yes God doth have a sense of humor and he doesn’t shy away from the sexual connotations and bawdiness of what He says. He chooses His words carefully and He says them for a reason!