1 Corinthians 12:12-31 English Standard Version One Body with Many Members 12 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. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should 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. 16 And if the ear should 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. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 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.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. I feel like this may be the key passage to the entire book of 1 Corinthians right here. While there have been many other messages, we've come together to a picture that everyone should be able to grasp onto--the body takes commands from the head (that is Christ), are interconnected with each other, and work together to accomplish the commands that the Head issues. The parts of the body don't get to be selfish, there are some parts that may seem more important because they are more invisible, but the really important stuff is all invisible (our vital organs) and every member needs to be there and healthy and obedient to the commands given to it for the body to work correctly
Like all analogies, this one breaks down a bit when you try to talk about excommunication (one of the topics brought up earlier in the book) as no part of the body can survive on its own apart from the body, but isn't that kind of the point? Christians are not meant to live in isolation, but to be in fellowship with one another as we live under the authority and Lordship of Christ. It is only through Christ that the miraculous can happen and that someone who has been "cut off" (excommunicated) can be restored once again to the Body of Christ--as mentioned previously, we'll come back to that idea of restoration in 2 Corinthians since the Corinthian church missed that being the goal in this letter and obeyed when Paul said that someone living in sin should be excommunicated, but didn't let him back in after he repented. We also see that we are part of one body--this is where we get "catholic" from in some of our creeds and names of our churches as we all belong to one faith and one church (one body). The thing is that we like the Corinthians aren't really good about the whole unity thing, but we major on finding the differences and making divisions over them--some divisions among "denominators" are really important and would keep us from being able to worship with each other because some of the divisions have to do with issues that are central to the gospel and issues that are so big, they can't be ignored--in fact, some are so big that someone might be a part of one of these churches and think they are a Christian, but not really be saved if they have never heard the gospel, received it, believed it and allowed the gospel message to take root and produce fruit in their lives (and be careful that you don't think "fruit" is good works that you accomplish on your own power, I'm talking about transformation and metamorphosis like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly). We have seen other places in Paul's letters where he had talked about unity as we are all lead by one Spirit, so let's move on as we've covered this topic several times already as we've studied most of the other letters that talk about this. We also see that our being a part of the Body doesn't depend on if we feel important, nor can we simply declare that we don't need the rest of the body. That would be as silly as the foot trying to say that it could exist without being connected to the ankle and the leg and the rest of the body. It wouldn't be able to do anything on its own, nor would its function be seen or understood unless it was connected to the rest of the body as it is there to help the other parts stand up and move where they are supposed to go. It may not be seen to be as important as say a hand that can pick up and manipulate things, but that hand couldn't get within arm's reach of the object that it wanted to touch if it wasn't for the feet getting the body over there. Now should the entire body all be the same--this goes back to our conversation of gifts of the Spirit from yesterday's blog and how the Spirit gives different attributes and giftings to each member of the Body to accomplish that member's task and function. Even though every cell in the body shares the same DNA as every other cell in our bodies, our bodies know how to make cells that are varied for different purposes so that we have bones, ligaments, voluntary muscles, involuntary muscles, neurons, and skin cells (I know I'm missing something, but you get the idea). Every cell has the exact same information and they all started off with the same potential to become any of these kinds of cells as stem cells, but they were given specific instructions to become the specific types of cells they were to perform the function that was needed and not part of our body is meant to rebel against its nature or assignment--it just does what it is made to do. When cells stop performing within the roles and assignments, then that is usually what we call cancer and usually such cells have to be cut out from the rest of the body for the good of the entire body because they will consume all the resources for themselves (they are selfish) and will spread throughout the entire body until they take over and kill everything else--this the exact kind of image of what was going on in the Corinthian church, there was a "cancer" there that needed to be dealt with before it became destructive and killed off the healthy people of God. Paul then circles back around to the topic of giftings of the Spirt (as I said yesterday, this is all one idea between these two sections of text). I'm going to group these gifts into three main groups based off of their primary function (some gifts may actually fit in more than one category). I'm going to pull from some other lists of gifts of the Spirit from Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and this passage in 1 Corinthians 12.:
There will be a day coming when it will be necessary for God to once again use the gifts of prophecy and tongues to speak to people in the last days, presumably because those people that are left will be cut off from direct access to the Word of God and that generation will have no knowledge of the truth of the gospel (we see a combination of them hardening their hearts and God hardening their hearts as we saw with Pharaoh in the Old Testament--in fact we will see that God will once again use plagues like the plagues in Egypt and use angels from heaven and send prophets from heaven (presumably Moses and Elijah, but we don't really know) to proclaim the gospel with power and mighty signs. The 144,000 witnesses and the prophets will be killed, and the signs will be willfully ignored, even though the people will understand both the message and the Messenger, but God will continue to be faithful to proclaim the gospel to the end, even to those whom He knows will refuse to believe it and even when that "good news" comes in the form of God is just and His judgment is coming on all who rebel against Him, as even this is a call to repentance. We saw this happen in the book of Jonah where God called Jonah to speak a message of repentance, but Jonah desired the judgment to come on the people he perceived to be his enemies and instead preached only that judgment was coming and the people of the whole city repented before Jonah even got halfway through the city. Will we see such revival in the end times? It is unlikely, but we can pray for it. How are you using your spiritual gifts to glorify God and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ? How are you using your gifts to support the work of others and edify the members of the Body of Christ? Are you coveting someone else's gift? Are you being faithful to use the gifts you've been given where God has you here and now trusting that if God has more for you to do that it is different that He can and will equip you to do those tasks when He calls you to do them? Are you encouraging others to be team players and looking for those whom God has equipped or are you trying to play a game of solitaire where you are trying to do everything yourself? Remember that we were not called to live or minister in isolation and even those who pour themselves out in teaching and preaching still need to be ministered to and encouraged. Pray for how God wants you to use your gifts, especially in this particular time of isolation for many of us as we face lockdowns, quarantines, and some becoming shut-ins by choice due to the situation of the coronavirus.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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