Teaching Text

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If 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? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Sermon Recap

This Sunday, Pastor Sam Gibson concluded our series on Making Sense of Church with a teaching on the Body of Christ, from 1 Corinthians 12. The Body is filled with people who are baptized by the same Holy Spirit, no matter our gender, culture, race, or any other identifiers. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, "Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate." We are called to love, serve, and participate in the Church, where Jesus gets all the glory.

There are some practices that defile the whole Body that we must be aware of. These include: sexual immorality; division and disunity; false teaching; unforgiveness and bitterness; neglecting one another; and worldliness and idolatry. Our personal walk with God and our secret lives affect the corporate Body in ways we may not even consider. Instead of allowing our private lives to defile the Church, we must seek to restore it. The Body can be restored in many ways, the main one being beholding Jesus, who should always be at the center, individually and corporately. We can also step into love and humility, follow sound teaching, pursue forgiveness and reconciliation, show honor to each other, and live with wholehearted devotion, by offering all of ourselves to Jesus.

What we do will either defile or restore the Body, particularly in the spiritual realm. Fortunately, we all have access to the same source—the one Spirit in whom we were all baptized and given to drink from. The Spirit's primary role is to reveal Jesus and align us under His headship. By this same Spirit, we are also refreshed and renewed, freed and transformed, and made each day to look even more like Christ.