1 Corinthians 12: 12-31
“Unbreakable B.O.N.D.”
Sermon by
Mark A. Horne
As we draw near the end of the High School football season and playoffs will begin soon, I am reminded of my high school career. Some of you know that Abbeville won the State Championship my senior year. However, that was an outcome of a unity that had developed through several years. Yes, we worked hard, lifted weights, and did all of the things we were suppose to do to be a championship team. But, our success did not begin there. It began three years earlier.
We were a team with a new coach and excitement was rampant throughout the community. He was a good coach but his true ability was that he knew how to build a staff of coaches under him. A team of 35 looking forward to accomplishing what many predicted would be a banner year. But it didn’t work out that way. We started off with the Jamborees, one loss then another. The first game of the season came – a loss. On and on we lost game after game, losing to teams we had not lost to in years and even losing our Homecoming game, something that had never happened in Abbeville Panther history – so it has been said.
More than just losing happened that year. Yes a lot more. A team of 35 became a team of 13. People were quitting with each loss. Fans that filled up the stands in the jamborees became just the parents of those who were still left – and a few hecklers that showed up to have some fun. With each loss practices became harder: not just because we did not like what was happening to us, nor because we did not have any trust in the new coaching staff; but because we were tired of running hills. You see - there is a hill beside our stands and every day the coach made us run up and down that hill, wearing a groove into it, not because we had lost a game, but because we did not work as a team.
Those 13 players made it through that horrible season because they helped each other up and down those hills. Black or white it did not matter, we were not going to suffer the ultimate defeat, that of quitting each other. It was that core of 13 the next year, which lost only three games and the third year won the State Championship.
If you will remember the Corinthian church was also in a state of breaking up. They had been arguing amongst themselves, those that thought they were great actually weren’t because they quit and followed after pagan idols. We learned in the first chapter that some wanted commit anarchy on Paul and follow after other leaders like Apollos and Cephas. But Paul set them straight telling them that it is the Lord, Jesus whom we follow.
In our passage this morning Paul again addresses the issue of unity. And as we study we should keep in mind the schisms that were taking place among them, especially in light of what Paul had just addressed them about concerning the Lord’s Supper and the spiritual gifts they possessed.
In doing this, I believe there are four points we can draw from our passage. And you could remember them with the acronym B.O.N.D. if you like
1. The Body of Christ is united.
2. Its Organization is God’s will.
3. Nurture within the body is necessary.
4. We should Desire the best Gifts.
The Body of Christ is united. In verse 12 Paul tells the church at Corinth that the Body that we call the church is one. Not the physical building, but the people that are within the physical building. This is a recurring theme that Paul constantly addresses with many of his churches. Turn with me to Romans 12. Let’s begin reading with verse 3…. As you can see Paul almost identically says the same thing in verse 4 of Romans 12 that he does in verse 12 of this morning’s text. What is Paul trying to get his churches to understand? In the Romans passage Paul addresses that we all should be content with our calling. We will look more closely at this when we get down to verse 15. But in our immediate context Paul exhorts believers to cleave to each other in the mutual distribution of gifts. Paul is telling the believers that since the body is a unit, since the body is one, your gifts are not just for your own enjoyment or disposal – your particular gift is for the body of the church. The gift that God has given each one of us is for helping our brother and sister.
Why? Why does God make it a duty of ours to use the gift He has given us to help each other? It is because of this: As Christians we constitute the spiritual and mystical body of Christ. We who are members of Christ are endowed with various gifts and have a connection with our Savior. Christ confers upon us this honor. He is willing to be lifted up in high esteem and recognized, not in Himself merely, but also in His members. The Church is Christ’s completion. One with its head - as if it might be separated from Christ neither could exist. And in having our existence with him, just like He is One with the Father, so we cannot live, exist, or have our being apart from Him or each other.
Yes, John illustrates this for us in John 15:4 where it says “since we are in Christ a fruit bearing vine, what are we out of him but dry twigs?” We as Christians have been engrafted by baptism into Christ’s body, the Church. Because of this work which our Savior has done, and shown forth by the symbol of Baptism, we are linked or bound together, whether we like it or not, to live one and the same life. Baptism is the reality we receive through the grace of the Spirit because we believe in Him who saves us. It is in this that we cultivate the fellowship we have with each other. Baptism is the symbol that none of us should reject the other due to ethnicity, ability, or anything else this world holds as sacred.
Paul then continues to say in verse 13 that this acceptance goes even farther when we partake of the Lord’s Supper together. In Holy Communion we drink from the same cup, we drink through the same influence, the Spirit of Christ. We drink the life-giving blood of Christ for the Church, the life we have in common with Him. Through the Lord’s Supper we are brought together into the same unity and become refreshed at the same time with the same drink.
But as the Body of the church is brought together into unity and shares that special bond through Jesus Christ, so the Organization of the body is disposed of by God’s will.
In verse 15 Paul begins asking questions with obvious answers. “What about the Hand? What about the eye?” Do these obvious members of the human body have the right to disclaim their function? Of course they don’t. Just as each particular member of the body has its function for the body so we have our own particular function in the body of Christ for the body of Christ. We should not be envious of the other person’s gift. The other shouldn’t be envious of our gift. For when we allow our pride to overcome our function we separate ourselves from the body. And “to be not of the body” means to have no communication with the other members and to live only for our selves.
It was in fact about six hundred years before Paul that a mere peasant was in a similar position. His name was Menenius Agrippa.
The plebian, or peasant, class of Rome during the early republic constituted the free (non-slave) work force of the Roman State. They served the State as laborers and soldiers, but had no representation on the Senate, which was restricted to the patrician, or noble, class. However, one of the two consuls of Rome during that period was required to be a plebian by birth, and the presence of a plebian consul in government was supposed to assure the plebeians that their interests were being protected. In 503 b.c., the plebian consul was Menenius Agrippa.
At the time, the plebeians were growing especially restless over their perceived ill-treatment and lack of representation, and a series of events led to an division in which a large group of them left the City and camped on the Aventine Hill, where they declared their intention to form their own city.
The situation was very dangerous for both sides; the plebeians feared an attack from the forces of the senate, and the senators feared economic collapse due to lack of a work force.
It is said that Menenius Agrippa was sent by the Senate to the plebeians as a negotiator, and that he appeased them and brought them back into the City to work out a compromise by telling them the ancient fable of The Belly and the Limbs, which follows.
The Belly and the Limbs
Back in the days when the various parts of the body did not necessarily all agree with each other, as they do now, but each had its own ideas and its own voice, some of the parts began to think that it was unfair that they should have to worry and toil to provide everything for the belly, while the belly just sat there in their midst with nothing to do but to enjoy the bounty they brought to it. They therefore conspired together, and agreed that the hands would no longer carry food to the mouth, the mouth would no longer open for food and the jaws and teeth would no longer grind up what they received. The belly growled and tossed about in protest; but the limbs remained steadfast in their angry resolve to starve the belly into submission. Soon though, they began to feel weak. Their fatigue grew worse and worse, until they, the belly and the entire body nearly perished from starvation. Thus, it had become clear that even the seemingly idle belly had its own task to perform, and returned as much as it received; by digesting the food brought to it and returning nourishment to the limbs via the blood.
We can obviously see that there can never be equality of gifts. For equality interferes with the welfare of the body. When Paul says, “if the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?” he means for the church to understand equality of gifts produces confusion and this leads to ruin.
God has put us where we are in the church for a reason. Though we may not understand it and though we may not like it – it is for his Divine purpose that it is so. It pleases God for His church to be set in place as it is. And because of this, we should not be dissatisfied with the situation. When we do we are saying we know more than the Creator Himself does and we wage war with God.
Verse 19 assures us that by God’s providence everything is for our common good. God has not acted at random, or without good reason when He assigned different gifts to the members of the body. In His glorious and Holy Wisdom He set the body in place for its preservation. In what we perceive as not being equal, God produces symmetry.
And through this symmetry, there is nurture. And Nurture within the Body is necessary. Verse 20 tells us there are “many members but one body” These many members hold a variety of offices and functions. But each holds their function in such a way as to have a mutual connection with the other. It is the variety that contributes to the beauty.
Nurturing the other means there can never be aversion. Even among those who may be seen in our eyes as more honorable. Paul says that the eyes should not say to the hand or the foot that it does not need it. For the more honorable member should not despise the inferior. When we take this kind of attitude we argue from utility and not care. When we do such, we act just like the Corinthians who stood tall and proud behind their pride and looked down on those less honorable. We say to them in our pride that we don’t need them when we should be nurturing them, so nurture may come back to us.
And to those with more ordinary gifts that Paul describes in verse 23 we should bestow more honors. They deserve special respect. The Greek text literally says to clothe them or place around these less honorable ones great value or respect. When we push them to the side it is as if we cover them up like they are some disgrace. But Calvin says that when we do what we are supposed to for the other members of the body that are less honorable then we “clothe them like an ornament” for display.
Paul wants us to understand this is for a reason. We must realize the care and concern the other needs so schism will not appear. It is God who brings the church together in its form. God has implanted the inclination in the church’s members. As we live together, rejoice together, suffer together; we promote community. There is harmony and we become affected by our brother or sister.
Therefore when we strive together, we strive and Desire the best gifts. No, not the prideful gifts like James and John in Mark 10, or those that make us stand out as the Corinthians tended to do; but we desire the gifts of service to each other.
Verse 27 says that being engrafted into Christ’s body we are truly members one of another. Whatever we have it is for the edification of our brothers and sisters. We should not allow ourselves to become puffed up with pride. As we have already noted, even the least among us brings forth fruit, there is no useless member of the church. We should have mutual affection, mutual concern and strive to preserve it.
Each one of us has his or her definite portion and definite work assigned to them. We must discharge our gifts, for that is their purpose. And they should be used for the service of the common good.
In verse 28 Paul lists some offices that have particular functions. The office of Apostle was to spread the gospel throughout the world. The office of prophet was endowed with a peculiar gift of interpreting Scripture and applying it wisely for the present use, and they also made known the will of God. The office of teacher was to maintain and propagate the sound doctrines for the purity of the church. There were those who had powers and gifts of healing. There was administrators or “elders” who were in charge of discipline within the church. The term portrays them as people who steer a ship at sea. And finally there were those gifts of different kinds of tongues both for the knowledge and the gift of interpretation.
Some have been perpetual offices. Others were temporary. Appointed only for the necessity and founding of the New Testament church. Paul continues in verse 29 so that the church will understand, whether one holds these offices or any other, no one member constitutes the whole body. All are to minister to the body and promote the good of the body in general.
Therefore when we earnestly desire, or zealously seek after the more excellent gifts, we don’t with pride covet the offices listed. We esteem and desire those gifts, which are most conducive to the edification of the church. We don’t strive to put on a great show, we diligently seek to do the best we can with the gift given to us because that is what God expects us to do with our own personal gift. One commentator says “to have the heart glow with mutual love is vastly better than to glare with the most pompous titles, offices, or powers.”
Let Us Pray: Dear Heavenly Father, you teach us much in your Word about who you are and what you expect from us, your children. Father, as we leave here, help us to understand that as your children we are apart of each other. We get our life from you and you have placed us where you desire us to be. Father, help us to nurture each other and desire the gift that edifies rather than cause division. Father, you have your Son as the Head of the Body. Help the Body follow His lead. For it is in His name we pray. Amen.