make a corpse out of it

Colossians 3:5-9
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 

While we used to do the things listed in this passage, we should now, as Christians, put them away, put them to death. "Putting these things away" or "putting them to death" is strong language. The greek words used can be translated as "mortify" or "make a corpse of...". That doesn’t mean flirt but just don’t touch, it doesn’t mean lie as long as it’s not something really important that’s going to hurt someone, it doesn’t mean only take revenge on someone if they really deserve it, it doesn’t mean only gossiping about people when your with your best friend rather than with anyone who’ll listen. That's not making a corpse out of those things. Putting them to death means we’ve got to keep as far away as possible, not indulging them and then trying to stop before we go “too far”. If we’re doing that, we’ve already gone too far.