In the Christian Science Bible Lesson May 16, 2011 Issue

How are we a ‘temple of God’?

For the lesson titled "Soul and Body" from May 16-22, 2011

Ann Edwards

This week’s Lesson, titled “Soul and Body,” turns our attention away from a physical understanding of who and what we are, to a spiritual one. 

It opens with the Apostle Paul’s declaration to the Corinthians: “The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (Golden Text, I Cor. 3:17). As a Jew, Paul would have known that at the heart of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was the inner sanctuary or “holy of holies,” where it was believed that God met and communicated with the high priest. 

But after becoming a follower of Jesus, Paul came to see things differently. To the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill, he explained that God doesn’t live “in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24, citation 6). He believed that we ourselves become dwelling places for the Holy Spirit of God when we refuse to be “conformed to this world” and are “transformed by the renewing of [our] mind.” To the Romans he wrote: “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (Rom. 12:2, 8:9, Responsive Reading).