Whiteboard: One Body

Last week we heard the good word from the Apostle Paul that there are Many Gifts and One Spirit of God. 

This week we pick up right where scripture left off and follow that same "Many, One" Pattern.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 Paul tells us that there are "Many Members" that make up the "One Body."

The truly remarkable part of that equation is that the "One Body" Paul is talking about is the Body of Christ. That is to say, we are the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ alive and at work in the world.

Individually we are members of that one body and while we all have important rolls to play, none of us is more important than any other.

Paul is describing what it means to live in Christian Community...and he uses this extended body metaphor to hammer home the point. "If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?"

A community of faith is filled with all sorts of folks with all sorts of different callings, abilities, skills, and blessings...and that is just the way God intended it. This diversity, this difference isn't just a necessary by-product of living in community, it is a part of God's design from the very beginning!

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1 Corinthians 12:12-31 -- One Body with Many Members

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.