What Does 1 Corinthians 6:13 Mean?
Food is for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will make both of them idle. The body is not for the selling, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.THE KEY
The verse separates passing appetite from the body’s enduring purpose: the body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
THE MEANING
Food and appetite belong to a passing order: God brings the belly and its foods to an end. Your body is not merely an instrument of appetite or sexual use; it is for the Lord, and the Lord is for your body. That mutual belonging makes the body matter to God now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that the body is only an appetite to satisfy, or that belonging to the Lord means the body matters less.
THE ROOT
σῶμα
sōma
GROWS FROM
σωμ-
sōm-
The body: embodied, physical life.
English can make “body” sound like a shell around the real person. Sōma points to embodied life itself, and the verse gives that life a reciprocal relation: the body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
ALSO GROWS
sōmatikos: bodily, physical
σωματικός
This related form keeps attention on life as embodied; the verse treats the body itself as belonging in the Lord’s care.
sōmatikōs: bodily, in bodily form
σωματικῶς
The same word family makes clear that the body is not incidental to a person’s life with God.
καταργήσει
katargēsei
GROWS FROM
καταργ-
katarg-
To render idle or ineffective; to bring to nothing.
“make idle” in this verse is katargēsei. The word translated “destroy” can carry the sense of making something inoperative. Here it applies to the belly and foods: their role passes away, while the verse turns to the body’s purpose in relation to the Lord.
ALSO GROWS
argos: idle, inactive
ἀργός
This related word carries the sense of something no longer at work, illuminating how the belly-and-food order comes to an end.
ergon: work, deed
ἔργον
The word family sets activity against inactivity; what satisfies appetite is temporary, while the body’s relation to the Lord is the verse’s lasting concern.
THE PATTERN
The body belongs to God, so its purpose reaches beyond appetite into a life directed toward God.
I open my hands to you, for I am made in awe and wonder. Your works are wonderful, and my living soul perceives it well.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the end that God is given weight.THE THREAD
Or have you not seen that your body is a temple of the Set-Apart Breath within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?This verse repeats the same Greek word, sōma, for “body.” It opens the claim further: the body is not only for the Lord; it is described as a dwelling place of God’s presence.
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