Body Talk

Imagine waking up one morning and hearing your kidneys talking to you. “You know, we’ve been doing a lot of cleaning up around here and don’t receive much appreciation for all our hard work. So, we’re taking the day off!” What would happen if your kidneys took a vacation? Your whole body would suffer.

Using the analogy of a human form, the apostle Paul describes the nature of the church as a physical body: “As the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). The head of the church is not a pastor or some officer in a building somewhere, but Christ (Ephesians 4:15).

The metaphor of a body teaches us that the church is to be a unified whole and that all the different members of the body depend upon one another. “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body?” (1 Corinthians 12:15). Many different types of gifted members make up the body of Christ. All are essential to the whole as they are dependent upon one another.

Some members of the body may feel so essential that they elevate their gifts above others. Paul warned, “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?” (v. 17). In other words, God intentionally created diversity in the body, not only that many things would be accomplished for His work, but that members would feel their need of one another.

You are an important part of the body of Christ. The Lord has uniquely created you to unselfishly contribute to the well-being of the whole church. So if you wake up some morning and contemplate taking a long vacation away from church, remember, you make a difference!

Apply It:

Which body parts do you think are most essential to the life of your body? Could that part exist for very long separated from the rest of the body?

Dig Deeper:

1 Corinthians 12:1–31; Colossians 1:18; Ephesians 5:23

Key Bible Texts

Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:27 KJV)