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The apostle Paul’s most frequently used term in reference to the church is “the body.” In using this expression, he draws on comparative features in our physical bodies. We find the fullest exposition of this analogy in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27.
In this passage he points out that even the weakest and least honorable parts of the body have their place and function. To these, in Christ’s body, God gives “more abundant honor” (v. 24). Some Christians fill such influential roles in the church that they may be likened unto an eye (vv. 16–17, 21). Others are like a hand or a foot (vv. 15, 21). However, many others are not so prominent and, and they are not to be despised. It takes all the various parts to make up the complete body.
Just as freckles and hairs on our physical bodies have their function, God can use even “that part which lacked” (v. 24) in the body of Christ in His service. After all, He took a shepherd boy and made of him the greatest king of Israel, a progenitor and type of the Christ. He also took a humble herdsman from an obscure Judean village and made him the great prophet, Amos. God’s own Son, the Savior of mankind, was born in the humblest of circumstances in a Judean village and grew up in a despised Galilean town from which no notable person had ever come (John 1:46). God’s Son chose His own intimate disciples from the unlettered and ordinary people of His time for the most part, and they rewrote history as they carried the Gospel throughout their world.
As then, so it is still true: “Not many wise after the flesh not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1 Cor. 1:26). “The intelligentsia,” as they are called today, for the most part look down their noses at the “simple folk” who fall for that “Jesus stuff.” Such folk generally deem themselves to be so self-sufficient as to have no need for the Gospel and its incomparable blessings. It was the common people who heard Jesus gladly (Mark. 12:37).
So you don’t have much education. You don’t have much money. You say you don’t have many talents. Remember: In Christ, the “brother of low degree” is exalted to a place of glory (Jam. 1:19). You have no excuse for doing nothing. The important thing is what you do with what you have.
We should be thankful for the “freckle and hair” souls in the body of Christ. In some cases, they turn out to be the body’s “backbone.”
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Lighthouse, weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, January 15, 2012, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
