The Temple of the Holy Spirit

In addition to the Sunday School class I teach with my husband, I teach a monthly Wednesday evening class for teenage girls. This blog is supposed to mostly be about the third and fourth graders we teach on Sunday, but I wanted to share this one, from my older girls.

We had a lesson on dating, sexuality, and purity. I try not to do these too often, because I really don't think it's a major issue for my girls--they're mostly 12 to 14 years old. The only older ones I have are very shy and haven't dated anyone yet. So, we're talking about purity, not just as it applies to sex, but also as it applies to what you put into your body, how you deal with your own physical nature.

I told them about the temple in Jerusalem, the center of Jewish worship. I told them how people had to go there, how their religion was incomplete without the temple. Then I told them about how the temple was utterly destroyed in 70 AD. "Where is the temple of God now?" I asked them. None of them knew. "Is it in...Rome?"
Ashley ventured a guess: "Yes?" I gave her a look. "No," she corrected herself. "Is it in London?"
"Ashley, can you read 1 Corinthians 6:19, please?"
She paged through her Bible. "'Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.' Wow. I had never heard that before."
"I thought you meant like, a real place," said Bree.
I told her that it was kind of a trick question. "Each and every one of you is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives inside of you. Your bodies are important because God lives in them. Don't pollute the temple."

They all were quiet with awe. How had they not ever heard this? But really, I think none of them had, and all of them were affected by the thought.