The Ties That Bind

1 Corinthians 12:12-20

12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by^[a] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

As a Church Universal, there is no doubt that we are called to be a picture of Christ. With that calling, come many responsibilities and goals that we, as Christians, often misunderstand. Just as the Church Universal is called to be a picture of Christ, I believe that the local church is also called to be that picture.

In the local church today, I see many body parts: church staffers, lay people, a wide gamut of worship options, a wide gamut of worship times, I see Sunday school classes, life groups, Bible studies and special-interest groups, I see generational ministry, family ministry, leisure ministry, and gender-specific ministry. I see hands, feet, arms, legs, fingers, and toes; I see parts we show off and parts that we cover.

Truly, there are many functional parts of the Body. And just like you, I have some favorite parts of the body. There are parts that I consider to be more useful to me and there are parts that I rarely take advantage of. However, I must remember that just because I use my hands more than my feet does not mean that I would be better off with three hands and one foot.

Surely now is a better time than ever to realize that every part of the body is just that, a part of the body. More than anything, my goal today is to speak of the Church in the first-person and to truly remember that I am the Church, that you are the Church, and that we are the Church together.