One Body but Many Members | The Rap Report | SFE | Andrew Rappaport

Well, welcome to another edition of the Wrap Report. This is where we give quick biblical interpretation and application to all things cultural and social media. It's a ministry of striving for eternity.

One Body, Many Members in 1 Corinthians 12

We are going to deal one last time with this cultic group that wants to end abortion and one of the misuses they have when it comes to the application of Scripture. Their view is that every Christian has not only a responsibility, but a duty to be about the business of ending abortion their way.

The issue here is that this contradicts, well, the argument of Scripture. Scripture is kind of clear. Paul makes an argument when it comes to spiritual gifts when he is arguing whether we should be about the business of all being doing the same thing within the church.

The local church or universal church, he is making the argument that there are differing gifts for a differing function but one body of Christ. We see this in 1 Corinthians 12. He says, for 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.

His argument here is that we should be about the business of doing many functions within the one body of Christ. Paul makes this clear just two verses later when he says in 1 Corinthians 12, and verse 14 -20, for the body does not consist of one member but many.

If the foot should say, because I am not a hand, do I not belong to the body? What would make it any less a part of the body? And if the ear should say, because I am not the eye, I am not part of the body, if the whole body were an eye, where would this sense of hearing?

If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members of the body, each one of them, as He chose, if all were yet, if all were single members, where would the body be as many parts of one body?

Furthermore, He says in 1 Corinthians 12, 21 -26, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor the head say to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor, and our unpresentable parts we treat with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.

But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together.

If one member is honored, all are honored together. What we see here is that it's quite clear that God organized the body of Christ in such a way that we all are to be functioning as one body, though many members, doing different aspects of ministry, all serving the same Christ.

That's how God established the church to function. The problem with any group that says that all Christians must be about the business of one area of ministry is imbalanced and unbiblical. Avoid any group that says that every Christian has the same responsibility that they argue we should be having.

According to 1 Corinthians chapter 12, that's not the way the church should be functioning. We should all be serving Christ using the different gifts that He gives us in the different areas where we are with the different ministries God uses through us so that we can serve the one body of Christ, though many members.

And any organization that wants to argue that we should all be about one thing is usually a cult. Just saying. This is another edition of the Wrap Report. You can find out more about Striving for Eternity at strivingforeternity .org.

Go to the store, see what products we would have, some books you could pick up. And if you'd like to get one of us to speak at your church, you can do that there at the website, strivingforeternity .org.