What does the Bible say about harming your body?
Bible Topic · WEB
The Bible teaches that our bodies belong to God and should be treated with grateful care, not abused, defiled, or ruled by sinful desires. First Corinthians 6:19-20 calls believers to honor God with their bodies because they were bought by Christ, while 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 warns against destroying what God regards as holy. Scripture also cautions against drunkenness and enslaving habits (Ephesians 5:18; 1 Corinthians 6:12), while recognizing human weakness and God’s faithful provision of help in temptation (Matthew 26:41; 1 Corinthians 10:13). Yet the gospel offers more than condemnation: God heals, forgives, and calls his people to live in the freedom and new life Christ has purchased.
Top passages, ranked by readers
Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible
- 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 21 votes
Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.
- Leviticus 19:28 20 votes
“‘You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am Yahweh.
- 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 17 votes
Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
- Matthew 26:41 7 votes
Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:13 5 votes
No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
- Ephesians 5:18 4 votes
Don’t be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
- 1 Corinthians 6:12 4 votes
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
- Psalms 30:2 4 votes
Yahweh my God, I cried to you, and you have healed me.
- Mark 7:18-19 3 votes
He said to them, “Are you also without understanding? Don’t you perceive that whatever goes into the man from outside can’t defile him, because it doesn’t go into his heart, but into his stomach, then into the latrine, making all foods clean?”
- Romans 6:23 3 votes
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Related topics
Go deeper
Ask Explain Bible AI about harming your body and get a fuller answer from a Reformed theological perspective.
Ask what the Bible says about harming your body