"Everything is permissible" is a good summary of our world's understanding of sexual morality today and it was a good summary of the understanding Corinth had as well.  It is hard for us not to conform to such pervasive views in our opinions and actions.  And the church in Corinth, to whom Paul was writing, struggled as well.  Paul calls them, however, to live out their sexuality in Christian ways, remembering that they are no longer their own, but that they are God's.

Paul focuses on prostitution in this passage, as the sin in which the Christians in Corinth were engaging in with little concern.  This is not surprising understanding how pervasive prostitution was.  Not only was it legal, but it was also an act of worship in the Temple of Aphrodite that was the centerpiece of the city.  Every man went to "worship" with the prostitutes in the Temple's service.

Today, Paul would probably name pornography as the sexual sin that too many Christians do not take seriously and engage in.  We live is a world in which pornography is pervasive and seen as no big thing.  Yet, as all sexual immorality, it is not harmless.  Instead, it chips away at our very relationship with God, and our ability to relate intimately with our spouse, or future spouse.

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