First Corinthians 6:20 tells believers that they were purchased at a cost, so they should honor God with their bodies as well as their spirits. Paul uses the image of a buyer paying a price to make the point that Christians no longer belong to themselves. The apostle Paul wrote this to the church in Corinth, a busy port city where believers were tempted by sexual immorality and by the idea that what the body does has no spiritual weight.
For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
1 Corinthians 6:20 (WEB)
What 1 Corinthians 6:20 Means
The phrase “you were bought with a price” uses the language of the marketplace. In the ancient world, a slave could be purchased out of slavery, and the new owner was then the one to whom the person belonged. Paul is saying that Jesus has paid to redeem believers from sin and its hold on them, so their lives now have a new owner. The verse does not teach that people earn God’s favor by paying him back. It describes a rescue that has already happened.
The next phrase, “therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit,” draws a practical conclusion. Because God has purchased the whole person, the body is included in worship and obedience, not just private religious feelings. Paul wants the Corinthians to show God’s worth in ordinary physical life: how they use their bodies, what they do with their desires, and how they treat others. The verse promises a relationship and a calling, not a guarantee that every struggle will vanish.
The Context of 1 Corinthians 6:20
First Corinthians is a letter Paul wrote to a church he had founded, responding to problems reported to him and to questions the believers had sent. In chapter 6, Paul addresses Christians who were taking disputes to secular courts and who were excusing sexual immorality by saying that bodily actions did not matter. The Corinthian slogans he quotes suggest that some believers thought that “all things are lawful,” and Paul pushes back against any split between body and spirit.
Just before verse 20, Paul reminds readers that the one joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him, and that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Verse 19 says “You are not your own,” which sets up verse 20 directly. Read in that setting, the purchase price is the reason the believer belongs to God, and the call to glorify God in the body is the natural response. It is not a separate moral rule standing alone.
Key Phrases in 1 Corinthians 6:20
Romans 12:1
Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
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Paul uses the language of offering the body to God as a living sacrifice. This connects closely with 1 Corinthians 6:20 because both passages see the physical life as something to be given back to God in worship. Romans 12:1 describes the response in terms of worship and transformation, showing that devotion involves the whole person.
1 Peter 1:18-19
18 Knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ…
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Peter also speaks of being redeemed with a precious price, the blood of Christ. This passage reinforces the purchase language of Paul’s letter and shows that the early church shared the same understanding of how believers were freed. It deepens the sense that redemption is costly and rooted in Christ’s sacrifice.
A Short Prayer From 1 Corinthians 6:20
Lord, you have bought me at a great price, and I thank you that I no longer belong to myself. Help me to see my body and my spirit as yours, and to honor you in the choices I make when no one is watching. Show me where I have treated part of my life as my own, and give me the courage to bring it to you. Let my daily habits, words, and desires show something of your goodness. Amen.
