One Body, Many Parts

Imagine a foot that has a sulk. I'm not a hand, it says, so I don't belong to this body. Or an eye that looks down at a hand and says, I don't need you. It sounds silly. That is exactly why Paul says it.

Corinth was a proud, busy port city in Greece, full of traders, sailors, craftsmen and people trying to climb the ladder. The church Paul had started there was full of gifts and full of energy, but also full of quarrels. Some said, I follow Paul. Others said, I follow Apollos, or Peter. Richer members looked down on poorer ones. And some people who had flashy gifts, like speaking in tongues, thought they were more spiritual than everyone else. Word of all this reached Paul in Ephesus, across the sea. So he wrote them a letter. And in the middle of it, he paints a picture.

A body is one thing, Paul says, but it has many parts. And all those parts, many as they are, make one body. That is how it is with Christ. By one Spirit, we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. The body isn't made of one part, but of many. So if the foot says, Because I am not a hand, I don't belong to the body, that doesn't make it any less part of the body. If the ear says, Because I'm not an eye, I don't belong, it still belongs. “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?”

Picture it. A giant walking eyeball. It could see everything, but it couldn't hear a single word. Or a great big ear, with no nose and no feet. It would be ridiculous. But God, Paul says, has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted. If they were all one part, where would the body be? So there are many parts, but one body. And then Paul turns the picture around for the proud ones. “The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” The ones who think they're important can't do without the others.

In fact, Paul says, the parts of the body that seem weaker are the ones we can't do without. The parts we think are less honourable, we treat with special care. God has put the body together so that more honour goes to the parts that lacked it. Why? So that there would be no division in the body, and so that every part would care for every other part. “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” When you stub your toe, your whole body knows about it. And then Paul says it straight out. “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” You, all of you together, and each one of you.

Comparing a community to a body was a well-known idea in the ancient world. The Roman historian Livy tells a famous old story of a senator named Menenius Agrippa, who calmed a revolt of the poor by telling a fable: the limbs of the body once refused to feed the belly, and the whole body grew weak. In that story, the point was that the lower classes should accept their place. Paul uses the same picture to say the opposite: the weaker parts are the ones that get the most honour.

One body, many parts. You'll find this in First Corinthians chapter twelve, verses twelve to twenty-seven. A divided church, a silly walking eyeball, and the truth that every single person in the body of Christ belongs and matters. So here is a question to carry with you. Who in your church or group might feel like they don't belong, and how could you show them they do?