No Discord
W. Carl Ketcherside
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The best illustration, of the unity we have in Christ Jesus is that of the body, and the fullest exposition of this illustration is found in 1 Corinthians 12. This chapter is one of a remarkable triad in which Paul deals with the use and abuse of gifts bestowed by the Spirit. It is interesting to remember that if the Corinthian saints had not become hung up on gifts, especially the gift of various kinds of tongues, these three chapters would probably not have been written. If they had not been penned we would have been without the beautiful thirteenth chapter and would not have known that love is the more excellent way. None of us are glad the Corinthian disciples became embroiled in confusion but I am pleased that God took advantage of their chaotic state to reveal some of the most beautiful truths I have ever read.
The King James Version begins the section with the statement, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant." The word gifts is in italic letters. This signifies there is no word for it in the Greek text. It was added by the translators because they deemed it to be essential to make good sense in the reading. I think the context justifies insertion of the word "gifts" but Paul is actually talking about "spirituals" and the term may apply to anything which God has bestowed through grace, and may include all of the information divulged about the body and its nature. The body itself is a gift from one standpoint.
It is clear from Paul's preliminary statements that there are some things that are one, while there are other things that are varied and different. It is thus by the will of God and not as a result of caprice. There is only one Spirit, but the gifts of the Spirit are diverse. There is only one God, but the workings and operations which He authorizes are many and varied. There is one Lord, but the services for which He empowers are many. There is one body, but the functions performed by its organs are not all alike.
Nature itself is one grand demonstration of unity in diversity. The human body, as the highest creation in the natural realm, is a showcase of this fact. The spiritual body of Christ is the most profound exhibition of all. Unity in diversity is the divine order in the whole universe. One who tries to inaugurate conformity in what God has made diverse, sins as certainly as he who would seek to separate and divide that which God has made one.
The Spirit manifests himself in different ways to different persons. Gifts are not given indiscriminately. They are bestowed upon those who can use them. And they are not to be used selfishly, but for the benefit of the body. We are interrelated and there must be a correlation of our efforts. We must follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another (Romans 14:19). "Let everyone of us please his neighbor for his good to edification" (Romans 15:2). A gift without
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The design of the body is to provide for the functioning of the gifts; the purpose of the gifts is to provide for the functioning of the body. The gifts are not the members, nor are they essential to the members becoming such. The gifts are enabling grants or powers providing for the easier and better fulfillment of the functions to be performed by the members. When properly utilized they make possible the fulfillment of the divine responsibility accruing from membership in the body.
We live in a realm of the physical and material, and in that realm Jesus works through members who are physical. Without members there would be no body, and without a spiritual body there would be no meaning to the work of Christ in the world. Rival bodies would only multiply problems rather than solve them. The situation would be greatly aggravated if such rival bodies all thought they were created by God and truly represented the divine purpose upon earth. The tactics employed by purely political parties are bad but they would be worse if such parties held the view that heaven established them to bring everyone on earth under their immediate partisan influence.
God only created one body. Regardless of the diversity of gifts and functions, and the gifts and functions are so many and varied we have probably not comprehended them all, there is but one body. Research institutes are working day and night in all parts of the earth in an attempt to understand the human body. That body has been here since Adam, and still we do not know all there is to know about its constitution. The spiritual body of Christ, as the new creation, has only been here since Jesus returned to the Father. We no doubt have much to learn about it, and as true scientists, we should be humbled by our remaining ignorance.
But we do know there is only one body. Jesus is not a freak or monstrosity. He is not a head with several bodies. "For as the body is one and has many members, and all members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ" (1 Cor. 12:12). This does not say "So it is with the body of Christ," but "So it is with Christ." Christ and the body are inseparable and indivisible. When you see the body you see Jesus. When the body is at work, Jesus is at work.
It is, therefore, important that I discern the body and never forget that it is one. Satan will seek to influence me into thinking that the body is fragmented because of the parties and factions formed by men, but I must look beyond these and realize that what men do can never undo what God has done. Those who are joined to Jesus as head are one body, and they are one body because they are joined to that one head. And so long as they are joined to Jesus they are one body regardless of external circumstances created by historical developments.
There may be racial and ethnic problems which indicate division. There may be social distinctions which still prevail and would seem to belie unity. But we are one in spite of them. "For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit." Unfortunately, caught up in controversy over what is designated as "the baptism of the Holy Spirit," we frequently become involved in the debate to the extent that we forget what the apostle was trying to prove.
Regardless of what is implied in the words, "by one Spirit we are all baptized," there can be no disputing the fact that "we were all baptized into one body." I take this very literally. I do not think that any person who is baptized under the motivation of the Spirit is ever baptized into anything except the one body. Those who immerse such a person may think they are baptizing him into a sect or party, but when one humbly and sincerely submits to the claim of Jesus upon his life, God overrides and overrules the sectarian intent and brings the earnest penitent believer into relationship with the head, even Christ. That is why grace
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The institutional church which we have managed to create and regiment by our own human philosophy has a poor record in its history of dealing with racism. That is especially true of the "church" in any land where human slavery was once a way of life, and the flesh of men and women was bought and sold on the auction block. Any people ultimately suffer for the crime of treating persons as things or chattels. When such action is justified by quoting scripture to sustain it, the crime is augmented. To make it appear that the God of the universe is a respecter of persons and sanctions our sin is to imply that heaven is on the side of iniquity.
God is not a God of the Jews only. He is not a God of the Greeks only. Neither is He the God of the free only, nor of the slaves only. God knows nothing about "black churches" or "white churches." Only sinful men separate and segregate His children for whom Christ died. The Spirit introduces them all into one body and sustains them all. "All were made to drink of one Spirit." We prove we have been drinking at another fountain when we make racial and social distinctions. We are one in Christ!
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
It is impossible to conceive of a body which is made up of one great big eyeball. Even if you could concoct such a mental image such a body could not continue to exist. Without hearing it would be run over by a fire engine or struck by a train. Not one of the senses is expendable. Sight and hearing are both essential. So is the sense of smell. The organs cannot transfer their functions or gifts. If one "flacks out" the function ceases. You can no more do my work than you can hear with your eye or smell with your ear.
Fortunately, in the physical body the organs do not become jealous of one another. I have never had an eye sulk on the job or threaten to strike because I smelled a rose with my nose. Neither of my ears has ever picketed my body, or carried a sign "Unfair to audio members" because I put all my food into my mouth. It seems never to have occurred to them that I should put a peanut butter sandwich or a bowl of chicken noodle soup into my ears.
It is only in the spiritual body that members think because they are not allowed to do everything they should quit doing anything. They start grumbling and murmuring that the body is just for preachers. Some who are as ambitious as they are unqualified want to quit if they are not selected as bishops. They look upon the presbytery as an honorary political office rather than the hardest and most difficult function in the community of saints. They conceive of themselves as "running for office" rather than running with patience the race set before all of us.
I know men who are fairly affluent and who can buy about anything they want. The result is they want to be prominent among the saints and throw their weight around. They feel themselves about three rungs higher on the spiritual ladder than the rest of the disciples and they do not want to participate in what they consider menial tasks. They prefer to flaunt their talents and be acclaimed for exercise of their gifts. They are not so much concerned with walking in the light as they are with performing in the limelight. If they are publicly teaching they are all "gung ho" but if they are sitting in the class they yawn and look at their wrist watches periodically. It is all they can do to sacrifice
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I have never had to pamper and brag on one of my eyes to keep it seeing. I have never had to pat an ear on the back and say, "That was a terrific job of hearing you just did, and you are every bit as good as my nose. I wish it could smell like you can hear." Neither of my hands has ever called me up on Saturday night to say, "I just wanted you to know I'll not be with you tomorrow." "What's the matter this time?" "Well, I don't feel like I'm really wanted. No one pays any attention to me. I work my fingers to the bone and I am ignored when the announcements are made. So I think I'll shop around a little and find a body where I feel more at home. Get someone else to take my place."
If the members of my physical body reacted like those in the body of Christ I'd "fall to staves." That is what is happening to many local manifestations (called congregations) of the body of Christ. Some of them consist of petulant, infantile, peevish and morose individuals who have never gotten past the spiritual incubator stage. They have to be petted, babied and coddled to keep them from throwing a whingding of a tantrum when things don't go their way. I know an old sister in Kansas who gets "bugged" every time she does some little trivial thing and the members do not all rush to the telephone and call her up and brag on her. Every time I see her she says, "I don't know what they'll do after I'm gone." Well, I know what they'll do, but I am not about to tell her!
But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is there are many parts, yet one body.
I love that statement. So far as I am concerned it knocks the theory of evolution off of its usurped throne and banishes it to the primordial ooze from which life was supposed to have struggled into being after a few hundred million years. We arrived either by creation or by chance. So far as I am concerned if we did not come by creation, the "chances" are we would not have come at all. And if we did there's no telling what shape we would have been in when they knocked the side out of the crate and turned us loose.
This passage affirms design, order and arrangement. And it is divine! I like that "As it is!" "As it is, God arranged the organs in the body." That is why my ears stick out and my eyes are in sockets. If it had been left to chance my eyes might have stuck out where my ears are and when I cried I would have gotten the back of my shirt collar wet. Chance might have turned my nose up the other way and I would have drowned in the first rainstorm. I am glad God arranged it.
There were two creations. In the first man was made out of dust. In the second a body was made out of men. In the first men had members, in the second men were members. But in both cases God arranged the organs in the body and He did as He chose. That's a good thing. If he had left it to a vote like the Baptists used to do you might have lost out when they tallied the ballots and turned out to be an eye or chin detached from the body. There are many parts to the body but there are no parties in it. The Holy Spirit creates the parts but the factional spirit creates parties. There is as
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The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
This introduces the opposite to the picture painted in verses 15 and 16. There the members who felt inferior were critical of those whom they deemed superior. They wanted to drop out because they could not function in the same way as others. Here those who are arrogant and supercilious deny any need of others whom they do not regard as essential to their welfare. But God says one cannot say to another that he is not needed. This does not mean it is physically impossible to verbalize such an idea. But the nature of the body as God has arranged it is such that there is an inter-dependency of the members which is so essential and unique that one member cannot divest himself of the need for others.
There are three kinds of parts mentioned for special concern--weaker, less honorable and unpresentable. In the physical body there are some parts which are always kept concealed or covered in public, some which are occasionally covered, and others which are exposed and not covered. Weaker parts are reassured in that they are designated as indispensable. They are not unnecessary because they are weak. The less honorable parts are actually invested with greater honor, while the unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty. One does not buy an expensive suit to cover his hands or face.
Do you think there is, at least a subtle condemnation of the growing tendency toward nudity in this argument of the apostle? Are we seeing a return to the heathen disregard for modesty and proper shame since we have become again a pagan culture in the western world? Is the cry of revolutionary youth to "let it all hang out" a symptom of the blatant disregard for the guidelines of ethical and moral conduct enjoined by the new covenant Scriptures? The apostle regards some parts and organs of the body as unpresentable, that is, in the social circle. Does not undue exposure actually deny this admonition to treat such parts with greater modesty?
I hope you will not get uptight about my little stroll down a bypath. Certainly I realize the apostle was not giving a dissertation on dress nor zapping streakers and other crazy faddists. The real point is that no one in the body of Christ is unimportant and we must take special interest in those who think they are and bestow more time and honor upon them. This is probably the most difficult thing we have to do, and most of us utterly fail. We do not want to be around those whom we deem to be inept, bumbling, uncommunicative persons. They make us feel uncomfortable and ill at ease.
Generally we speak to them in passing and brush them off and hurry away to talk with someone whom we esteem to be brilliant, outgoing and able to enhance and polish our own image. In the analogy of Paul that is like powdering your face and forgetting to put your clothing on. The secret to avoiding discord in the body is to give greater honor to the inferior parts. If a top echelon associates together and ignores the "lesser members" the "lesser ones" will drop out, form an underground movement and plot how to get rid of the "big boys." More congregations are split by forming cliques than anything else. This results primarily because we have ceased to be a family and have become "big business."
In a lot of places if you are part of the "in group" you can do anything, but if you are not you can't do anything. If you
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It really isn't all that bad everywhere. There was a young couple of my acquaintance who were led to Christ in a large congregation. Not having been reared in the church, and not knowing how to act, they took Jesus seriously. Both the man and wife had advanced scholastic degrees and they were not "dumb clucks" if you'll pardon the description. One night they read where Jesus said, "When you give a dinner, don't invite your friends or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they invite you in return, and you be repaid." Then they read on, "But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be paid at the resurrection of the just" (Luke 14:12-14).
They talked about that for a couple of hours before they retired and finally reached the conclusion that they had been given good jobs and a comfortable apartment to enable them to practice just what Jesus recommended. Out of this grew their own little private project which they came to call "sharing with the sheep in the shadows." The brother explained it to me. He said that in a congregation such as theirs most of the people were always in the center of things, chatting and joking and back-slapping before and after the meetings. The ones who felt left out stepped in and sat down in a remote place or hovered on the fringes of the crowd.
They began to take these home with them. They did not fix anything elaborate because they never knew who would come, or if anyone would. She laughingly remarked that Jesus talked about "giving a feast," so she thought of assorted cold cuts and potato salad as God's feast. They evidently thought of me as a likely candidate for one who couldn't pay so they asked me home with them on Sunday. They also had a couple of long-haired boys who had recently been found and rounded up by the Shepherd. There was also a woman from out of the city whose husband was in a local hospital, and an elderly widow who was virtually alone in the world. All of us were singularly blessed, although I got a bang out of the two boys who had never been around people like ourselves and unto whom "church talk" was sort of like an unknown tongue.
I know of a man whose only son was killed in an automobile crash on his way back to college after a term break vacation spent at home. The father assuaged his deep grief by helping boys in the congregation to find themselves. He has become a real friend and counsellor to a number of them. They know they can talk anything over with him and they trust him because he never violates a confidence. Several whom I know would probably have become spiritual drop-outs but for his genuine concern.
I guess I am a little like Jesus in that I get "bugged" by self-righteousness more than by most other things. I do not even like my own brand. A short time ago a crew of ripped-off long-haired kids came into my life and I began to work with them. One by one they were immersed into Christ although every one of them had a history of former drug addiction. A brother who has had it pretty easy in this affluent society, but who still gripes about it, asked, "How are you making out with the hippies?" I replied, "I haven't seen one since 1965. What are you talking about?" He said, "These long-haired, sad-looking specimens that you have been meeting with." I said, "Those are not specimens, they are children of God. You are talking about my brethren in the Lord." He couldn't let it go by without
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God's ideal is for the members to have the same care one for another. That is the real secret of harmony. You can deliver dissertations on unity from the sanctity of the pulpit until Jesus comes, and it will mean nothing until the saints start caring. The question is not what is the world coming to, but when is the church coming to? Our immediate task is not to get the world out of its chaos but to get the church out of its coma. I have seen whole congregations changed by one person who cared what happened to others. H. D. Ward wrote, "It is a truth which stands out with startling distinctness on the pages of the New Testament, that God has no sons who are not servants."
We show our concern for Christ by our care for one another. Regular attendance at religious exercises can never compensate for lack of exercise of genuine compassion. As Billy Sunday put it, "Going to church will no more make you a Christian than going to the garage will make you an automobile." I do not recall who it was who made the wise observation that "We have too many saints in stained glass windows and not enough of them in shoe-leather."
Perhaps there is no more poignant description of our mutual relationship in Christ than the statement, "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together." This is not limited simply to those whom we see and greet on Sunday mornings. Our relationship in Christ is not circumscribed by time and place. It is not external. It is not limited to those in physical or geographical proximity. It also includes those like Jesus "whom having not seen we love."
If a member of the body is wounded in Vietnam I feel the pain in my own body. If a husband loses his wife in Great Britain I share his grief. We should never be disturbed or feel bothered and put upon because someone in the loneliness of his loss sits down and writes us page after page describing the former relationship and the passing on of his loved one. We should feel honored that he looks to us for a sympathizing heart and a compassionate outreach. In such an atmosphere of sharing, his sorrow is assuaged and he finds strength to go on. Suffering is easier borne if someone shares it with us. We should look for opportunities to help. There is a Chinese proverb which says, "It is better to do a good deed near at home than to go far away to burn incense."
It is probably easier to share suffering than honor. In our human predicament, with selfishness not wholly crucified, we can shed a tear for one who is deprived of that which is dear to him. In the case of special honor which comes to another we are liable to feel deprived ourselves and be led to envy rather than to rejoice. Such an attitude indicates that we are using the body relationship for personal gain and our motivation is all out of joint. We must pray for a sense of intimacy which will weld us together indissolubly so that we may not look upon our own welfare but upon that of others.
All of this sums up to the fact that we are one in Christ. We are one by an act of God rather than by our own personal action. We are in the fellowship because we have been called into it. We are together because we have been brought together. The body is not our creation, but God's creation. We best serve the divine purpose when we serve in harmony and strive to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "All your strength is in union. All your danger is in discord." In the dark days of the American Revolution Benjamin Franklin uttered the memorable words, "We must indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." Someone said, "Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."
In the one body we do not function to-
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We must all resolve firmly that we will never be a party to division in the body of our Lord, and we must all resolve just as firmly that we will work to repair those divisions which have already occurred. If we are to flow together the impediments which separate us must be removed. It is possible for us to demonstrate to the world that we are one in Christ but it will require the efforts of all of us to do it!