1 Corinthians 12:19 - Printer Friendly

ESV: If all were a single member, where would the body be?

NIV: If they were all one part, where would the body be?

NASB: If they were all one part, where would the body be?

CSB: And if they were all the same part, where would the body be?

NLT: How strange a body would be if it had only one part!

KJV: And if they were all one member, where were the body?

NKJV: And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

Paul's comical picture of the parts of a body in rebellion against their functions feels less comical when we think of all the ways Christians do similar things in the church, the body of Christ. How many Christians have decided to simply stop functioning because they don't like the function God has given them to fulfill? It's not that they cannot serve, give, teach, and so forth. It's that they'd really like to do something else.

Spiritually, this like a body part choosing to become inert—like a finger that simply stops performing its functions. At best, it's now taking up resources without contributing to the body's intended mission. At worst, it's distracting other members from being efficient in their intended roles as they work to take up the slack.

Why can't we all choose what job we want to have in the church and serve in that way? Paul shows why in this verse. If every member decided to be the same thing—pastor or encourager or speaker of tongues—the body would cease to exist. A thousand noses is not a body. A mass of brain cells—without bones, fingers, intestines, or elbows—would be useless, and incapable of survival.

First Corinthians 12:12–31 continues Paul's teaching on the spiritual gifts as they cooperate to empower God's will for the church. The Christian church is like a human body. It is one individual organism made up of many different parts that serve a wide variety of functions. All those functions matter. Nobody should decide they don't like their gift or their role in the church and try to quit. The body needs each member to do its part in order to work properly. We must respect and value each other for the vital roles we serve in the church.

Apparently in response to further questions from Corinth, Paul describes what spiritual gifts are, who receives them, and what they are for. His emphasis is that particular spiritual gifts do not make believers spiritual. Every believer is spiritual because every Christian has God's Spirit with him or her. In addition, the Spirit gives one or more spiritual gifts to each believer to be used to serve the church. The church is like a body, in which every part is needed, and all the parts exist to serve one another. Every believer must discover how they are gifted by the Spirit and value the function they serve in Christ's body.

After tackling the issues of head coverings for women and the Lord's Supper in the previous chapter, Paul moves to the issue of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul insists that the display of spiritual gifts does not make one believer more spiritual or important than another. Every believer in Jesus has the Spirit, and the Spirit gives to every believer one or more spiritual gifts. The gifts are given for the common good, and the church is like a human body. Each gifted function in the church represents a body part, and all the parts are essential. This sets up a description of love, as defined from a Christian viewpoint, and famously recorded in chapter 13.

First Corinthians is one of the more practical books of the New Testament. Paul writes to a church immersed in a city associated with trade, but also with corruption and immorality. These believers are struggling to properly apply spiritual gifts and to resist the ungodly practices of the surrounding culture. Paul's letter gives instructions for real-life concerns such as marriage and spirituality. He also deals with the importance of unity and gives one of the Bible's more well-known descriptions of love in chapter 13.