IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON November 19, 2007 Issue

An occasional column in which writers discuss Bible passages that appear in the Christian Science Bible Lessons.

QUITE A DIFFERENT TEMPLE TOUR

BETH CAREY

NEARLY TWENTY CENTURIES have passed, yet my mental image of 50 A.D. Corinth pulses with sights and sounds of what life must have been like there. I've visited modern Corinth, so it's easy to picture the sailors, dockhands, traders, and travelers—men and women from around the Mediterranean and beyond—mingling at the wharf and on city streets. At some point during the day, virtually everyone in Corinth would catch sight of the magnificent Temple of Aphrodite, which looms high on a nearby rock outcropping.

Back then, when the Christians in Corinth received a letter from their dear friend Paul, one line would have caught their attention immediately: "Ye are the temple of the living God" (II Cor. 6:16).

Paul's spiritually elevated concept of temple featured prominently in the apostle's first message to the Corinthians. He wrote: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? . . . for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (3:16,17). Paul also referred to the body as "the temple of the Holy Ghost" (6:19).