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One Body with Many Parts
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Good News Translation (GNT)
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12 Christ is like a single body, which has many
parts; it is still one body, even though it is
made up of different parts.
13 In the same way, all of us, whether Jews or
Gentiles, whether slaves or free, have been
baptized into the one body by the same Spirit,
and we have all been given the one Spirit to
drink.
14 For the body itself is not made up of only one
part, but of many parts.
15 If the foot were to say, "Because I am not a
hand, I don't belong to the body," that would
not keep it from being a part of the body.
16 And if the ear were to say, "Because I am not
an eye, I don't belong to the body," that would
not keep it from being a part of the body.
17 If the whole body were just an eye, how could
it hear? And if it were only an ear, how could it
smell?
18 As it is, however, God put every different part
in the body just as he wanted it to be.
19 There would not be a body if it were all only
one part!
20 As it is, there are many parts but one body.
21 So then, the eye cannot say to the hand,
"I don't need you!" Nor can the head say
to the feet, "Well, I don't need you!"
22 On the contrary, we cannot do without the
parts of the body that seem to be weaker;
23 and those parts that we think aren't worth very
much are the ones which we treat with greater
care; while the parts of the body which don't
look very nice are treated with special
modesty,
24 which the more beautiful parts do not need.
God himself has put the body together in such
a way as to give greater honor to those parts
that need it.
25 And so there is no division in the body, but all
its different parts have the same concern for
one another.
26 If one part of the body suffers, all the other
parts suffer with it; if one part is praised, all the
other parts share its happiness.
27 All of you are Christ's body, and each one is a
part of it.
28 In the church God has put all in place: in the
first place apostles, in the second place
prophets, and in the third place teachers; then
those who perform miracles, followed by those
who are given the power to heal or to help
others or to direct them or to speak in strange
tongues.
29 They are not all apostles or prophets or
teachers. Not everyone has the power to work
miracles
30 or to heal diseases or to speak in strange
tongues or to explain what is said.
31 Set your hearts, then, on the more important
gifts.
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Taken from 'word-on-the-web' supplied by the
Scripture Union
One Body with Many Parts
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
The central thrust of Paul's discussion of the gifts of the Spirit is that they are distributed without discrimination to every member of the community: no one is excluded and, in a striking reversal of the prevailing patterns of honour and shame, those people labelled by Corinthian society as 'weaker' and 'less honourable' (which would include the many slaves who came to Christ) are declared 'indispensable' and worthy of 'special honour' (vs 22-25).
The gospel brings a social revolution in which the values of the dominant society are turned upside down and, instead of spiritual gifts being prostituted for personal gain and prestige, they exist 'for the common good' (v 7).
The competitive individualism which pervaded Corinthian society is replaced by the vision of a new community in which all members 'have equal concern for each other' and share together in both suffering and honour (v 25,26).
Paul employs many different literary devices in his writing to drive his message home.
We can find examples of parody, irony and sarcasm in these chapters, but does he also deploy humour?
Is the image of a human ear declaring its independence from the rest of the body designed to make us smile?
Does this remind us that when the community of disciples abandon their calling as the body of Christ and allow the dominant culture to reshape their relationships the outcome is simply laughable?
Is a congregation consisting of people who belong to the same social grouping and are culturally homogeneous like a monstrous ear attempting to exist in isolation from the body to which it belongs?
Perhaps we should laugh out loud at such a perversion of Paul's great hope for the new community in Christ, although it may always be possible that the joke is on us!
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