A while ago I injured my right shoulder, and for several months I had to use my left arm to do many things it had never done before. Being right-handed, I was surprised how dexterous my left arm became.
What was the left arm’s reaction? Did it resent suddenly having to do so much unaccustomed work? Did it perhaps get conceited, and decide that it had previously been undervalued and now I ought to give it the recognition it deserves?
No. It’s a part of me, and it just does what it needs to do.
The apostle Paul described the community of believers as being like a human body:
‘Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit’
(1 Corinthians 12:12–13).
When you are baptised, you become a part of a worldwide body.
Unity in Diversity
The picture of the body teaches that the Christian community consists of a great variety of different kinds of people—there are right arms, left arms, eyes and ears and backbones, and obscure internal organs that no one except doctors have heard of. We all play our part, and we are all important. Paul continues:
‘For the body does not consist of one member but of many… If the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body”, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?… But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose’ (vs. 14–18).
A peculiarity about people is that we tend to prefer the company of other people who are like ourselves. But the body is built of many parts that are very different, and it’s that diversity that makes the body work.
Love One Another
Jesus Christ said to his followers, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Using the picture of a human body is an excellent way to reinforce this principle. For example, under normal circumstances you perhaps don’t pay much attention to your little toe. But if you should stub it, your whole body is in distress: ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together’ (1 Corinthians 12:26).
The idea of one part of the body looking after itself and being unconcerned about other parts is absurd—the body is a single interconnected and interdependent organism. So as Paul said again, ‘Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others’ (Philippians 2:4).
Some members of the body find themselves physically isolated from it, which of course presents difficulties. But they can be connected to their fellow members online or by correspondence and maybe occasional visits—and of course by prayer. This way they can still play their part.
Christ the Head
Arms are arms and legs are legs, but it’s your head that makes you what you are. Your face conveys your identity; and with your brain you think and feel, and direct the rest of your body.
The head of the body of believers is Jesus Christ:
‘Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love’ (Ephesians 4:15–16).
In this imperfect world, no community is perfect, not even the community of believers. There are personality clashes, and problems which can even be so severe that the body is damaged (see page 22). But faithful believers enjoy the assurance that they are a part of a growing, vibrant, indestructible body—the body of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us (Galatians 2:20), and is always with us (Matthew 28:20).