Word studies · Greek · Strong's G3485
ναός · naós · appears 46 times in the New Testament
In one line: Where God dwells — now His people.
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;
1 Corinthians 6:19
Naos is the sanctuary — the dwelling place of God rather than the temple complex around it, and the word Paul applies to Christians.
Naos names the inner sanctuary of the Jerusalem temple, the place of God's presence; it is the naos curtain that tears at the crucifixion. Paul then applies the word to the church and to the individual believer: “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”
Naos derives from a root meaning to dwell, and in Greek religion it named the shrine housing the god's image — the building's holy center rather than its precincts. The New Testament keeps that precision, using hieron for the whole temple estate and naos for the sanctuary itself.
English uses “temple” for both words, which loses the force of Paul's claim. He does not say Christians are like the temple courts where anyone could walk; he says they are the inner room where God dwells — the place the high priest entered once a year.
Naos (G3485) appears 46 times in the New Testament, and Revelation ends by saying the new Jerusalem has no naos in it, “for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”
Moving the dwelling place of God from a building to a people is one of the New Testament's decisive shifts, and it follows from the torn curtain. Holiness then becomes a matter of what God's own presence indwells rather than of sacred architecture.
Treat your body and your congregation as the place God has chosen to live, which is Paul's actual argument for how to use them. Ask what one habit would change if you took that literally this week.
a fane, shrine, temple
Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.
Matthew 23:16“We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple, and in three days I will build another that is made without hands.
Mark 14:58he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
Luke 1:9Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.
John 2:19The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.
Acts 17:24Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16Press and hold temple in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.