by Ken Schurb

Download a PDF of the Word One Bible Study for Epiphany 2 Epistle.

Text: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary Series B

OBJECTIVE

Participants will take a God-centered, grace-filled approach to the subject of sexual purity.

MATERIALS NEEDED

Bibles

GROUP GUIDELINES

Form small groups of 4-6 people. Choose as leader the person whose birthday is the closest to today. The leader will keep the group moving through this study. Everyone should have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion, but each may always pass.

BUILDING COMMUNITY

  1. Do you think the media, especially TV and popular music, does more to drive people into premarital sex or to pull them away from it? How so?
  2. What advice have you found helpful to consider as you are confronted by sexual temptations? What makes it helpful to you?

LOOKING AT GOD’S WORD

  1. Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. In one way, the message of this passage can be summed up in two words from verse 18: “flee fornication.” Discuss the reasons given for the command to flee fornication, and thus glorify God in the body (verse 20).
  2. Sex is not an appetite on the same level as eating, and one cannot be as indiscriminate about having a variety of sexual partners as eating a variety of foods. Why?
  3. Read verse 14. How does this verse suggest that the bodies of people, especially those of Christians, are of great importance in the Lord’s sight?
  4. Read verses 15-18. This one involves Christians more specifically yet. What is it? (Genesis 2:24.)
  5. Another reason is in verse 19. What is this one? (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).
  6. A final reason is in verse 19-20. What is it? (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18-19)

REINFORCING WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNED

  1. In what ways does the last reason above turn out to be the most important one of all?
  2. What does safe sex mean as the term is most frequently used? Is it a selfish thing? Why or why not?
  3. What are the reasons people most commonly give for maintaining virginity until one is married? Do these reasons strike you as good? Are they selfish? How so or not?
  4. Based on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, work as a group to write a script for a commercial urging Christians to flee fornication. Be creative.

CLOSING

Close by praying:

Spirit of the living God, help me to find those persons for my friends who breathe Your new life. Most of all, according to Your will, help me to find that one person who will share with me a life and a home supported and lifted by Your presence.

In my longing for this important person, I can come only to You. Only You know my personality and my needs more intimately than anyone else. Only You can know who will need me, and the faith and courage in You that we can both bring to our lifetime relationship.

I ask for this person in Your own time, my Savior. I ask a time of preparation for my meeting this special one, and for Your blessing in living out that time of preparation without endangering the relationship I have with You. For this is the relationship I prize above all joys and all human contacts. It is the relationship that will last beyond all. (Walter Riess, The Teen-Ager You’re Dating, CPH, 1964, p. 127.)

 

 

Originally published in Discovery Bible Studies 9, 1996.

Updated for youthESource in January 2014