Some think he is addressing men exclusively, and he means you should possess or seek or acquire a wife; your vessel is your wife. It is possible, to read the verse that way. The Greek verb translated ‘possess’ can be translated acquire. It has that meaning. It could be referring to something you have to get, or to something which you have already got. Our translators have decided the later. But everyone should know how to possess – you have already got it. Some modern translations go the other way and they put it like this – that every one of you should know how to acquire. Well I think it is the later, the KJV is right. However, what is it that you are acquiring? Your vessel. Well is it your wife, or as most of the old commentators always said and our translators imply here – is it your body? Your body and your mind. The apostle Peter uses a vessel to describe a wife, but the apostle Paul tends to used it to describe your own body. Paul uses this language in other places. In 2 Corinthians 4.7 he writes, ‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ He is talking about himself and preachers. We have this message of reconciliation, the gospel, in poor, fallible, human bodies. So he uses the term vessels to mean bodies there certainly. And also in 2 Timothy 2.21 he does it again, ‘If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour.’