The Restored Brownstone on Halsey Street

In 2019, a young couple in Brooklyn purchased a neglected brownstone on Halsey Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant for a price that stretched every dollar they had. The previous owners had covered the original marble fireplace with drywall, painted over hand-carved mahogany banisters with thick latex, and converted the parlor into a storage unit crammed with junk. The house had been treated as if it were disposable.

The new owners spent two years peeling back layers. Beneath the drywall, they found Italian marble intact. Under seven coats of paint, the woodwork emerged with grain so fine it seemed to glow. The original stained glass transom above the front door still cast colored light across the entryway every morning. The beauty had been there all along, buried under carelessness.

Paul tells the Corinthians something similar. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?" He is not asking them to become something they are not. He is asking them to stop covering over what they already are. They were bought at a price — the immeasurable cost of Christ's own blood. The Spirit of the Living God had taken up residence inside them, and they were treating that dwelling like a storage unit.

You are not your own. You are a masterwork that belongs to the Almighty. Honor Him with what He has already made beautiful.