Individual Identity & Belonging to a Community (Part 4)

Unity Yet Diversity in the Body

¹² For just as the body is one^(A) and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ.^{(B) 13} For we were all baptized by^[a] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.^{(C) 14} Indeed, the body is not one part but many. ¹⁵ If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.^{(D) 19} And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body. ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” Or again, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable. ²³ And those parts of the body that we consider less honorable,^(E) we clothe these with greater honor, and our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, ²⁴ which our respectable parts do not need.

Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, ²⁵ so that there would be no division^(F) in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. ²⁶ So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ,^(G) and individual members of it.